For Every Action
by JPC
Summary: Devlin, a vampire sired by Spike in his New York days, tries to avenge Buffy for breaking up his family by attempting to destroy the Council. Meanwhile, Angel reaches out to the Slayer Devlin used to date.
1. Spike the Father

1This is a continuation of "The Ties That Blind." In this story Devlin teams up with his sister Elektra and Gypsy vampire Jeta to take on Buffy and her Slayers. Along the way, they enlist just about every powerful vampire in the world as they fight to avoid extinction. Everybody takes part in this world war, including Angel, who teams up with Buffy in the climactic fight. Pretty much everyone from both shows makes an appearance, including Cordelia, who offers Buffy some unwanted assistance.

The story begins in Season Five between "Smile Time" and "A Hole in the World." The title refers to Newton's Third Law of Motion: "For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction." The point is that Willow's spell changed the world so fundamentally that there has to be blowback in the form of radically altered vampire behavior. Elite vampires will now group together for safety. But this only buys time, and time is not on their side, since the number of Slayers increases daily. Devlin thinks he's found a way to destroy Buffy's organization before it's too late, and for this reason he becomes leader, even though he's nowhere near the strongest or the oldest or the one with the biggest wrinklies.

Interspersed throughout the story are flashbacks to Devlin's and Debbie's time together, explaining how they met and fell in love, as well as flashbacks to Devlin's and Elektra's "childhood" with Spike and Drusilla.

For the record, Devlin doesn't think he can defeat the Slayers by just shooting them. His grand plan doesn't involve firearms at all.

Enjoy. And comment. Even if you don't enjoy, comment.

"Cowards."

"They are evil," a confused Xander reminds Buffy.

"They're supposed to bite people. Not shoot them. That's a human thing."

"You're right," Giles concurs. "This is unprecedented. Slayers aren't supposed to get shot at."

"Not that it hasn't stopped them in the past," Xander points out.

"This was different," Buffy counters, contrasting it with her own experiences. "The police said there were three shooters. They surrounded Jan - "

"Jen," Giles gently corrects.

"And executed her. In the middle of Central Park. Three on one, and they need guns."

"I suppose it's a perverse tribute," Giles comments. "No it's not. It's alarming."

"What do we do? Give the Slayers bulletproof vests," Xander half-jokes.

"This won't spread," Giles predicts. "Vampires who kill this way will not get an ounce of respect from their peers."

"Saved by peer pressure," Buffy sighs. Things had seemed so bright. Until Rona and Vi were killed last weekend. Now this. Dawn sticks her head in.

"It's Juanita. From New York." Buffy leaps up and takes the cordless phone.

"What? You're quitting?"

"Not quitting. Goin' solo. Not like I have a choice now, ya know?"

"You have us. We'll send someone else. We'll send two more. Three, soon. We know New York's a big city and you could use the help."

"I don't need 'em. I can handle myself. And if they front like the ones that whacked Jen, I got friends in my neighborhood who can take care of that, too."

"You're bringing outsiders into this? You're risking your friends?"

"Ain't that what you did?" Buffy takes a few seconds to respond.

"That was different. That was completely different. I didn't have an army. You do. You don't need to risk outsiders."

"Look, no offense, but maybe you're the outsider." This infuriates and baffles Buffy.

"I trained you. I took you and I made you into a Slayer and gave you the power."

"And I'm thankful. Thank you. But now I need to go home."

"You are home."

"No I'm not. My friends, my school, my family: that's home. You want me, I'll be in Washington Heights. But don't come looking. I'll call you. Sorry. I really am, Buffy." Her expression turns crestfallen. She was being abandoned.

"What is it," Giles asks, wanting to speak to Juanita. Buffy hurls the phone to the floor, shattering it.

"Okay, that can't be good," Xander comments.

Devlin meets in the sewer with Lon, a tall, dark demon who looks too dignified for this setting and far too powerful to be seeking help from such a petty-looking vampire. But desperate times called for undignified measures.

"Never in my worst nightmares did I think it could get like this."

"It's horrible living in fear," Devlin says.

"The fear's not the worst part. It's the humiliation. They're taking the Hellmouth, they're making it their own, and they're having fun doing it. They laugh as they drive us out of our homes. They think we'll let them take this town from us, that we're too scared to rise up, or too weak even if we're not." The humans had become so cocky that the area immediately surrounding the Hellmouth, long ceded to the demons, was now being developed for commercial and residential use. They could hear the bulldozers above ground going about their work.

"The occupation will be over in two days," Devlin promises grandiosly. "Just do what I say." Lon grabs Dev's throat.

"I don't take orders from a half-breed." He throws Devlin to the ground. Dev gets up and chuckles.

"Enough of this pure-breed Nazi talk. And you wonder why the humans are in control." Dev lights up a cigarette. "Two nights. And we work apart, so they think you're still in charge. Which you will be. I'll just be providing some suggestions, which you'll accept, if they're good. Which they will be. Here's the first one: decide which demons you want to live, because most of them are gonna die." Lon looks like he's about to get violent again. "Don't worry. I have my own list for the vampires. Suffering will be equal, win or lose. Cause if we lose, we're all dead. Half and pure-breeds. The Slayers don't care."

Sitting in that crowded lecture hall, Connor felt alone. There was only one person he cared about, only one thing that could keep his attention. And it wasn't Kant and the Categorical Imperative. It was Debbie. He barely knew her, yet he was in love with her. Her golden skin. Her flowing curls. Her perfect body and glowing eyes. Her grace and kindness and sweetness. He'd never felt this way about anyone. Yes, her boyfriend was an asshole, and it spoke poorly of her that she had chosen to be with him. But she had always been nice in their brief moments together. And relationships didn't last forever. He knew that all too well, meeting Debbie the night after he found out Stacey had been cheating on him.

Meanwhile, forty miles south, Debbie was dealing with having dumped Devlin after he betrayed her by killing Vi. She tried being a shut-in, but couldn't take it. So now she prowls the streets of Orange County at night looking for vampires to kill. Orange County's streets aren't exactly pedestrian friendly, so she'd probably do better driving around to the various feeding spots. But those were empty anyway because she and Dev had killed all the local vampires, the rest were too intimidated to enter her territory. Even Los Angeles, where Angel had used Wolfram & Hart's resources to crack down, seemed safer to them. Soon they'd realize Devlin had changed sides and return. Then she might need Angel's help. Fortunately, he was already there, trying to make sure Deb didn't revert to her delinquent ways. He came to her house the previous night, so Debbie knew what to suspect when she realized someone was shadowing her. She tosses a knife behind her. Angel catches it in front of his chest. A second knife hits his right thigh.

"Can't think of anything better to do than stalk teenage girls," she asks as she rushes over. She twists the knife in his thigh and pulls it out. Angel grimaces.

"Not girls," he replies defensively. "Just you," he fibs.

"I don't need you help. I can kill vampires just fine on my own. I'm a Slayer."

"That's not why I'm here." She groans.

"Oh no. Not this again. My soul doesn't need saving. I'm not evil. I'm not going evil. I just broke up with my boyfriend because he turned evil. Which means I'm going the opposite way."

"I noticed your friends aren't with you this time." When he first came to Laguna Hills with Spike, they were ambushed by them.

"I don't wanna bore them."

"You shouldn't be alone right now."

She pulls out her stake. "In case you haven't noticed, I'm not looking for any more vampire companionship. But I am looking to get out a little aggression." Angel takes a step back as she lunges forward. "And in case you haven't figured it out yet, I don't really care whether the vampire has a soul."

"Look, Deb, I'm glad you're out here. I'm happy you're still fighting the good fight." She rolls her eyes at what sounds to her like a hokie, earnest cliche from a hokie, earnest vampire.

"How come no one ever says they're fighting the bad fight? I'm just saying."

"I know how tough it is to go through what you're going through."

"Really," she responds skeptically, raising her eyebrows. "Is that so?"

"Okay, not personally," Angel wisely concedes. If anything, he understands this situation from Devlin's point of view. "But I know what it's like to want to give up."

"Do I look like I'm giving up?" She stabs the stake in his direction. Angel grabs it before it reaches his chest and spins her around.

"You're going through the motions. We both know there's no vampires out here."

"Yeah. They're in Los Angeles. Where you're supposed to be killing them with your boyfriend Spike."

"Spike is not my - okay, that was immature."

"I'm seventeen."

"Even for seventeen."

"Right. You know a lot about seventeen year-old girls. How old are you? Like, 35?"

"Okay, I get it. You want me to get lost. But I'm not giving up on you, Debbie."

"Do I have to be nice to you cause you gave me that scholarship? You're not gonna take it away?"

"Of course not. So how is school?"

"Please stop trying to be my father."

"You don't like me, do you, Debbie?"

"No. I find you funny. All this good-and-evil, white cowboy crap. That's not how the world works," she adds condescendingly, sounding worldly as only the inexperienced can, which Angel finds humorous.

"I fight evil by running an evil law firm. I think I know something about the complexities of life."

"Then why don't you act like it? Oh, and while you're at it, stop trying to get inside my head. Just cause you fucked one Slayer doesn't mean you know them all. Devlin told me you'd think I just want to be a normal girl, because that's what superheroes in the comic books want. Well I don't. I've never been a normal girl. Maybe when I was eight. But not much since then. I like my powers. I don't feel they come with some special responsibility. And I don't want to be part of anyone's crusades. Yours or Buffy's." Angel senses the lingering influence of Devlin, but also that maybe she really does want someone to talk to who could understand. She does. Just not him.

"I don't think you need me. That's not why I'm here," he assures her. Debbie laughs.

"You think I thought that? No. You think I thought you thought . . . you're right. Otherwise, why would you come all this way? You got a job and a girlfriend and all up north." Angel's alarmed at her knowledge of his personal life, but then remembers she knows this because Deb and Dev went on that mission to help protect Nina and Oz. "Or, you're trying to recruit me to your evil organization that does good. Sorry. Already got my own." She puts up the hood of her jacket and walks away.

"Debbie, wait." She turns around, but looks impatient, pointing her stake in his direction to show this.

"If you ever need any help - a demon infestation, something too big for you and your friends to handle (he's still hypocritically alarmed she brought her friends into this) - "

"I know. Just call. I still got your card." He smiles. "By the way, you're lucky you're not Spike. Then I'd have killed you. Unless he gave me five grand like you did. No, make it ten. I don't like him." Angel smiles as she runs off. But the talk of extortion and protection money does worry him, since it smacks of Devlin and his mercenary ways.

As the stereo blares Public Enemy's "Party For Your Right To Fight," Elektra dances, surrouned by the male vampires. She pulls them in and keeps them at bay with the coquettish glances of her bright blue eyes, as well as her lithe swaying body, hugged by white leather pants and a powder-blue halter top. She shimmies around the floor, just to show that she can make them follow her, increasing the jealousy of the other female vampires who believe they're just as pretty. One of the vampires, Kat, who is quite pretty, but holds no grudge against Leks after watching her kill Rona, rushes up to Devlin, who eyes the scene dispassionately, pacing the floor in his black jeans, black tank top and black trench coat. "You're back," she yells, hugging him. "How was New York?"

"Not as good as I remembered it. But I did bring gifts." He reaches into a coat pocket and pulls out a diamond bracelet. Her jaw drops.

"For me?" She can't believe it. Diamonds. And she hadn't even slept with him.

"For surviving all these Slayers all this time." He puts it around her right wrist and kisses her hand. She impulsively kisses him on the lips and runs her fingers through his slicked-back black hair.

"I don't know what to say."

"You've said plenty," he responds with a smirk, referring to her reaction. She opens her mouth, closes her eyes and leans in to kiss the man who drove a stake through Vi's heart, but he takes a step back. Then he pulls out a thousand dollars in each hand and spreads out the $20 bills like playing cards.

"What? You're shitting me?" He was being overly generous for no obvious reason.

"Money is the sinews of war. If you're gonna run this town, you'll need it."

"Excuse me? Maybe I didn't hear you right cause of the music. Did you say - ?"

"I have too many other towns to liberate. When I'm gone, you're in charge." She can't imagine how she'd get other vampires to follow her. She was herself just a follower. She had always been a follower. Vampires rarely moved from minion to leader. Devlin knew this, but he also knew the old system of stratification was Buffy's best friend. "I'll set up a bank account and wire you more as need be. Remember that vampires are cheap, demons even cheaper. I believe you can be a great leader Kat. I have faith in you. And so does Elektra." Like most female vampires Leks befriended, Kat liked to think of herself as the best pal and sidekick. Elektra was that great combination of party girl and protector. She'd show you a great time, and she'd save your life. So what if she also might steal your man?

"I don't know what to say," a shocked Kat responds.

"You're dropping some of the money." He gets down and picks it up for her. When he hands it over, their fingers touch, and she prepares to kiss him. Dev tilts his head to the left and points at the bracelet. "It looks good on you. Slayers will be too busy trying to steal it to stake you," he jokes. Then he just walks away, towards the demons, who remain segregated in the back of the room. Elektra rushes over to talk to her brother.

"What is wrong with you?"

"She deserves it."

"She deserves YOU. Kat practically threw herself at you. Who are you to reject her? I've seen your other girlfriends. She's so not beneath your standards."

"I'm busy. A gaggle of Slayers could come through that door at any moment."

"That's what the guards are for."

"Go back to your boys." They stare each other down. "I'm going to go cross the invisible barrier and mingle with the demon folk. It's like a sixth grade dance in here."

The demons do not warmly welcome the vampire interloper. So Dev pulls out two thousand more dollars and hands them to Lon. The demons quickly besiege Lon for a handout, ignoring Dev, as he hoped they would. Devlin then zeroes in on a feline-looking demon and pulls her tail. She scratches his face and bares her pointy teeth. Dev goes bumpy and growls. She reaches for his throat, but he grabs her wrist and tickles her stomach. She giggles, then throws him twenty feet back. He retreats into what used to be the foreman's office. She sticks out her forked tongue as she enters the room.

"Shut the door," Dev tells her, taking off his coat and shirt.

Outside, Spike discovered why the demons could party without a care when there were six Slayers in town. Dev had paid four teenagers with Uzis to patrol the perimeter. With only one entrance, their job seemed fairly easy. After preparing to get riddled with bullets, Spike has a better idea. It's a demon party after all. So Spike puts on his vampire face. The guards are under orders to allow all non-humans to pass. He makes it through without a hitch and pulls back the heavy metal door. "You call this a party," he yells out. The vampires at first don't recognize him, which annoys Spike. The demons recognize him as the vampire who killed their former leader the night before. But Lon holds them back. He wants the half-breeds to fight it out and waste their strength on each other.

"It's Spike," Kat quickly figures out.

"Finally! Someone recognizes me."

"Hello daddy," Elektra says. "Care for a dance for old time's sake. You always did love it when I danced," she adds with a smile.

"Anyone who wants to live can leave now," Spike announces. The vampires laugh. Spike laughs along, then lunges forward and snaps one of the vampire's necks. They mob him. He punches and throws four of them aside, bangs the heads of two more together, kicks one and stakes another.

Dev notices the music's stopped, and he's now the loudest thing in the room. The demons actually turn away from the vampire fight towards the sounds of bodies being smashed into walls in the office. Spike goes to stake Kat, but she is saved by Elektra's leaping right kick. The vampires swarm Spike while he's down, but he wriggles free, knocks down two more vampires and grabs another girl. Elektra grabs his right arm. Spike lets go of the other vampire and knocks Elektra down with a left hook. He pulls out another stake and throws it at a male vampire to his right. A shot rings out, and the bullet hits the stake, breaking it in two. Everyone turns in the direction of the shot, including Spike. But before he can lay eyes on Dev, his son puts a bullet in his father's crotch.

"Not daddy's goodies," Elektra shrieks.

"I missed the parts you like," Dev responds. He's shirtless and has deep punctures on his stomach, as well as scratches across his chest and shoulders.

"Actually, I liked all his parts. Before he went wrong." Elektra pulls out a throwing star from her pocket and aims it at Spike's face. Dev walks forward pointing his gun. Spike has to decide which one of his children he should pay the most attention to, and tries to keep his left eye on Dev and his right on Leks. The vampires ran when they heard the shots, knowing that was Dev's signal to stand down and let him take of things. They remain along the walls, watching this family reunion. None of them have been in families, so they find it novel.

"I see two piles of dust," Dev says as he approaches his father. "Maybe I should shoot out an eye for each vampire of mine you've killed."

"Maybe you could put down the bloody toy and we could walk outside and fight this out like men."

"Fine. Me and Leks and you. No Slayers. That's fair." Elektra smiles at the idea. She doesn't want to kill daddy. Just rough him up bad for all the pain he caused by leaving mummy for Buffy.

"You've never cared about fair," Spike responds, gesturing to the gun. "Let's just have a friendly father-son chat. You can bring the fire stick if it makes you feel all manly."

"Out," Dev orders. Spike backs up, and finds it difficult to walk without limping. "Party's back on." Dev orders. The music starts up again. Once outside, the two vampires slip away from the guards, so they can enjoy a little privacy.

"Did you have shoot me there?"

"You're lucky I have great aim. Otherwise I could have accidentally hit your vitals. Then Claire might get upset. That's her name right? The redhead? Does Buffy know about her? And do you know about Gonzalo?"

"None of you're bloody business. Gonzalo?" Dev chuckles.

"Italian-Spanish prince. Bourbon on both sides of his family. From what I hear, Buffy doesn't mind the in-breeding. I think Paris Match named him one of Europe's fifty most eligible bachelors. Don't worry. He has a dashing thing for fighting demons that should get him killed. Especially if I take an interest. Or would Buffy grieve too much and not move on back to you?"

"Right now she's too busy trying to kill you to care about much else."

"How do you know? Do the two of you talk? Does she even know you're alive?"

"You killed a Slayer. One of the ones she knew by name."

"And posted the video on the internet. That's the sort of thing it's hard to overlook."

"It's possible. If you had a soul." Devlin laughs. "I know you did the research."

"So the apparatchiks at Wolfram & Hart didn't keep my confidence. By the way, why aren't you working with them? Tired of playing Liam to Angel's Noel Gallagher?"

"I know you found a way to buy it back. I know you have the money. You always have the money. And Angel is not Noel Gallagher. If anything, I'm both, and he's the drummer, or something."

"What's the point of a soul? I can't get Debbie back."

"The point is to live. You're a marked man, son."

"I've been marked before."

"But not by Buffy."

"And her New Model Slayer Army. I don't care. I have no choice."

"Like bloody hell you don't."

"You know what this is about? You can't be proud of me! In the old days, I wasn't bad enough for you. Now I'm not good enough for you. Nothing I do is ever good enough." Dev reaches down to the holster above his left ankle and pulls out a second gun. "You bring any Slayers," he yells. "Come on out, girls. I'm waiting!" He fires a shot above Spike's head. A quarter mile away, Wood hears it.

"Let's move," he impatiently orders.

"We are not walking into an ambush," the police officer to his left says.

"They're gonna bolt," Kelly, standing to his right, predicts.

"Check it out," Robin orders. "If it's only the 'bangers, we move. But don't get seen."

"I'm not an idiot."

"Tell me son, why don't you just blow my brains out right here," Spike asks Dev.

"Where's the fun in that?"

"I thought I was the one who cared about fun. You've always been all business."

"Which you never approved of." Kelly hides behind a pile of dirt and observes the father-son bickering, which she finds incredibly strange. Almost as strange as she found Spike's relationship to Buffy back in Sunnydale.

"It's always my bloody fault," Spike responds.

"I did some great things. Stuff some people know about. I made a lot of powerful enemies. But you didn't care. I took over a major American city. But you weren't impressed. I made scads of money. But it didn't matter. Nothing was ever enough for you, dad!"

"Cuz I knew you could do better."

"No, you didn't! You never believed in me. Elektra was always the star."

"She developed at a different rate that you." Spike stops for a moment. "Okay, this is getting bloody ridiculous."

"I still don't matter to you."

"Of course you do! You think I'd come all this way to stop Leks? You're the one I care about. You're the one with potential. You can do a lot of bloody good, son. Or you can die. The choice is yours."

"Better to die than live as Buffy's slave. Then again, you tried to do both."

"Well, son. You finally could have made me proud. I'm sorry you didn't. Bloody shame for both of us."

"You don't know how bloody."

"Did I hear my favorite word," Elektra asks.

"Get back inside," Dev orders. Kelly really wishes she brought her crossbow.

"And be scared of something you're not?" Spike absorbs the insult. "So now you need a Slayer to back you up. Come to think of it, that's been your M.O. for the while." Kelly worries she's been spotted and stealthily retreats.

"Shouldn't you be making some boy happy? Or two, or three, or however many it takes to replace me."

"Five. Although two boys is enough if they've had a taste of Slayer's blood. Know where I can get some?"

"I'm surprised you don't have quibbles about working for your brother. He made it pretty clear he's in charge and you're the, what's that American word Dev used, sidekick?"

"Lame, daddy. Come on, bro. Let's go party. Nothing to fear out here." She turns around and walks back in. Dev backs up, guns pointed out, eyes peeled for crossbows. Spike runs off once his son is inside. He returns to find the Slayers and the cops already in motion.

"Spying on me now," he asks Robin.

"You don't really think I trust you."

"Lucky for us, the feeling's mutual."

"Get in the sewer."

"Wut about the attack?"

"Get in the sewer to cut off their escape."

"Just me?" Wood points a loaded crossbow handed to him by Gretchen at Spike's chest.

"Go ahead," Spike dares before turning his back and walking away. Robin hesitates before lowering the crossbow and joining the Slayers for the attack. Inside, Devlin quiet subdivides the vampires into three squads while having everyone pretend to continue partying. Elektra helps this along by sandwiching herself between the two cutest vampires. Dev starts dancing with a comely redhead who came to the Hellmouth knowing Rona and Vi were dead, but not knowing six more girls had taken their places. Elektra convinced her not to run by arguing that Slayers are everywhere and it's best to take a stand with a large group, preferably one led by Slayer killers.

Jeta sat at a corner booth while an attractive woman twice her age put her hand up her skirt. "You're an old soul," the woman tells her in Spanish.

"What makes you think I have a soul," Jeta responds with a smirk. She returns to scanning the crowd. The woman puts her right hand to Jeta's left cheek and makes her look in her direction.

"Is it another woman?"

"Many. None of whom I wish to see."

"Then why do you look?"

"If they come, it could get ugly. I want to protect you." The woman chuckles. She needs protection from this kid?

"What's your accent?"

"German."

"A German Gypsy?" She thought they had all perished.

"Yes. We're used to being hunted. Keeping an eye out is an old habit."

"You're safe. Let's dance."

"So you can show me off?"

"Nonsense." She kisses Jeta's long neck. "All eyes are already on you." Jeta knows how true that is. She leads her date by the hand to the dance floor. Jeta wears a long blue skirt and a yellow blouse, looking out of place, old-fashioned even. But not as out of place as the Slayers usually looked in these places. They were always so easy to spot, even if they weren't the only other teenagers. But now her eyes catch sight of a new girl. Short, plump, familiar. And she looks like she belongs. Jeta walks away from the woman, not even offering an explanation. The woman, frustrated, decides to wait. The Slayer and vampire meet. Jeta checks both exits. Another Slayer at each one. But these girls, as usual, look out of place.

"Want to dance," Jeta asks in all seriousness as she looks down. She touches the Slayer's face, who slaps the back of her hand.

"Pervert! I thought only the boys fell for us."

"You're special, Dorina."

"My name is Alma."

"No. It's still Dorina. Even after all this time." She touches Alma's short, curly hair. Alma punches her in the face. The older woman, watching from a distance, is shocked, as are the other women who see or hear it.

"Think you can seduce your way out?"

"Your friends did a good job of hiding. Better than the others."

"Nowhere to run, Yetta. Or fly."

"I'll teach you everything. It will be like before. But this time I will protect you." The confused Slayer tries a right uppercut. Jeta literally beats her to the punch, leaping backwards as if hit by a cartoonishly mighty blow. The crowd gasps. Jeta lands and races for the door, with Alma close behind. A Slayer blocks the front exit. She bends her knees and prepares for impact, because Jeta looks for all intents and purposes as if she's going to try to plow through her. Instead, when Jeta is two steps away, the Slayer flies ten feet straight up in the air. Jeta races out through the unguarded door. The Slayer falls down on the pursuing Alma. Jeta stops once she's outside, and waits for the two Slayers. Once they're in view, Jeta turns into a raven and flies away. Alma lets out a stream of Spanish profanity. The other Slayer wonders why she temporarily lost control of her body.

Dev has faith the guards will deter the Slayers. Leks decides to give them a pep talk, disappointing her dance partners. She runs out and approaches the youngest guard. "What's your name?"

"Leroy."

"I'm Elektra. My friends call me Leks. How old are you, Leroy?"

"Thirteen."

"So you've never been . . . touched? She sidles up to him, puts her right hand to his cheek and her left hand on his chest. "You've never been . . . experienced?" She pushes her body against his.

"Umm, ugh - "

"Hey get the hell back, white girl," the leader, all of seventeen, yells. "He's gotta job to do. A-ight, Leroy?"

"A-ight." She smiles at him. He smiles back.

"I love a man who knows how use a weapon," she whispers in Leroy's ear. Suddenly, four pairs of headlights shine on them.

"This is the police! Put down your weapons and leave the premises," the lead officer barks over a bullhorn. Elektra races inside. The two cute vampires rush up to her.

"Later. It's the cops!"

"What," her brother asks incredulously. This possibility had not occurred to him.

"Put down your weapons and leave the premises and you will not be arrested," he hears.

"Oh crap." The principal had outmaneuvered him.

"What," Kat asks nervously.

"Don't worry. You know what to do. Lek leads." Outside, four teenagers face off with the cops, not sure if they'll be executed if they drop their weapons. They can't see the cops in the dark, since the police stand behind their headlights. The Slayers get impatient. Leroy sweats and trembles. He's never been in anything even close to this. Fear of death mingles with thoughts of Leks. Then fear of death comes back. Leroy throws down his weapon. Two shots discharge from it. One hits a headlight. Four cops return fire. The other three young men stand there, trembling. Dev hears the fussilade.

"What the fuck."

"This is good, right," his sister asks.

"I suppose." Part of him is upset at the possibility of needless bloodshed caused by his machinations. "Let's go. Now!" The vampires feel safer together. Also, they expect Devlin to protect them.

Robin realizes what a mess he's made. Gretchen is also devastated. But the Slayers are unfazed.

"Cease fire!" the lead officer orders. He holsters his weapon, steps out in front of the headlights and slowly approaches the three boys with the Uzis. "It's okay." He holds up his hands. "I'm not gonna hurt you. I'm not gonna even arrest you. If you put down those guns. They glance to their right and see Leroy's bloody body. Part of them wants to revenge his death. The leader seriously thinks of blowing away the unarmed officer. But he knows what will happen after that, and doesn't want to die. He carefully puts down his weapon. The other two follow suit.

Without Wood's order, Kelly leads the Slayers in a full-on charge. They race right past Leroy's body without even looking. Getting the vampires who killed Rona and Vi is more important. Elektra's group is already underground. Kat's group is in the process of fleeing. The Slayers race towards the sewer access, but have to contend with some confused and angry demons whom Lon found it hard to control. The girls go to work slicing and dicing while Kat joins Lex. Kelly breaks through the demon mob and sees the last of the vampires escaping.

"Veronica," she calls out. This Slayer finishes off a demon and races towards the vamps. Only three remain. Dev points one gun at Kelly, who's holding the Scythe. He fires for her knee-cap, but the Scythe swings down almost on its own and the blade blocks the bullet. She's amazed at what her arms just did. So is Devlin. He doesn't realize he's now alone. Kelly charges, sure this vampire is responsible for a Slayer's death. Dev takes two steps back. Then he spots Veronica approaching out of the corner of his eye. He fires the gun in his right hand and hits her left foot. Kelly stops and looks over her shoulder.

"I'll take her with me," Dev promises to prevent Kelly from getting any closer with her weird weapon. Then he disappears down the hole. Once he's gone, part of Kelly wishes she'd taken him out. Veronica would've probably only been winged.

Outside, Robin rushes over to Leroy while Gretchen heads inside with two crossbows. She sees a chaotic demon slaughter, but no signs of vampires. The demon Dev was fooling around with rushes her. She drops one crossbow, calmly aims the other and puts an arrow in her right eye. When the demons stops and grabs it, she punches her in the nose. Kelly then beheads her from behind. The fight quickly winds down while Lon leads his close friends to safety. Things go silent. The slaughter is disgusting. Pools of red and green and orange blood. Various body parts piled up. "Damn," Kelly says. The same result as before: a massacre while the enemies they care about beat a tactical retreat. Their Watchers have other priorities for the moment.

"We should go back out there," Gretchen proposes.

"I'll go. You stay here with them." Normally, Wood would be suspicious of Rupert's girlfriend wanting to get close to the Slayers in his town. But not after what happened outside.

Down below, Spike recognized Elektra in the dark by her scent and grabbed her from behind, putting his right hand over her mouth so she couldn't alert the other vampires. Even Dev was too eager for escape to notice. Once they're alone, Spike drives her head into the wall. "Damn. For a second there, that was like one of my fantasies." Spike kicks her in the stomach and knees her in the face. "A gorgeous man plucks me out for some underground ravaging." She dodges a right hook. "Their moans echo up and down the tunnel." Spike lands a right hook to her face. "Not to be." Elektra tries a right cross. Spike grabs her arm, throws her face-first into the wall and takes out a stake, only to get clocked. It's Lon, eager to show his superiority to the last leader and get some payback. "Thanks. Sorry I can't repay you. No I'm not," Leks says before vanishing. She's very fast, even for a vampire.

Dev was eager to leave because he wanted to deal the Slayers a major blow. But he was in for a major disappointment. The principal's house was protected by two cop cars sitting out front. He hurried over to the parking lot of a nearby convenience store to join the vampires. Without telling them the bad news, Dev just says to follow him to safety. "Tomorrow, we shall taste blood, and the Slayers shall once again taste defeat!"


	2. Cordy and Buffy Get Glowy

1After a conversation with the always reassuring Gonzalo, Buffy decides she may have been a bit hard on Juanita, and goes into her bedroom to call Giles to get Juanita's number. She flips the light switch on and notices a blaze of light to her left. Buffy faces it, steps back and assumes a fighting position. Surely this is a demon teleporting into her bedroom to kill her with some magical device. Then the demon takes shape. "Cordelia?" Her jaw drops.

"Long time no see." Buffy's still slacked-jawed and disbelieving. "Am I still glowing? Sorry. I do that to impress some people. Obvious you're a bit beyond impressing. So. How are things? We sure are a long way from Sunnydale."

"You're floating." Cordy looks down at the ground.

"Oh. Sorry again." She puts her feet on the floor. "Is that better?"

"What the Hell are you?"

"What do you think I am?"

"Dead."

"One thing we both have in common. Well, one of a few."

"You're a ghost." Cordelia picks up Buffy's phone.

"Fraid not. Now Giles is one on your speed dial, right?" Buffy runs over, grabs the phone, slams it down and gets in Cordy's face.

"Get out of my room. Get out of my town." Cordy backs up into the wall.

"Such hostility. And things have been going so well for you. Well, they were until Spike's icky spawn decided on a whole revenge scenario." Buffy sees this as a taunt and throws a right cross. Cordy blocks the punch with her left forearm and grabs Buffy's left wrist before she can throw another punch. To Cordy's shock, she starts glowing again, and the glow extends to Buffy. After a couple terrifying seconds, Buffy frees herself from Cordy's grasp and leaps across the room as if electrocuted. She falls to the ground and looks up, feeling violated.

"You're evil."

"Which is why I turned white. Just like Willow did when she made all those Slayers. And to think I used to pick on her."

"You came here to kill me. You never could stand living in my shadow."

"And I'm supposed to be the catty one."

"You're lucky Willow's not here."

"Right. She's in South America with her super-girlfriend. Speaking of catty, don't you think Willow could do better? You know, I never thought I'd say that about her." Buffy feels itchy.

"What did you do to me?"

"I'm sorry. I didn't know. That only happens when a person's so full of rage and pain that . . . oh, now I get it." Buffy walks towards Cordy, but keeps six feet back out of fear.

"What did you do to me?"

"Nothing yet. We have to finish." She steps forward. Buffy steps back. Gonzalo opens the door.

"I heard noises. Is everything alright?" He looks at Cordy, and is very confused.

"Sure honey," Buffy replies.

"You can go back to watching soccer highlights," Cordy tells him. "And if you want, I can put in a word to have that team you own win tomorrow's game." Actually, he only owns ten percent of the franchise. But Gonzalo's shocked she knows. And that she's even here.

"This is Cordelia," Buffy informs her perplexed boyfriend. We went to high school together. We're just, catching up on old times." He looks at them for a few more seconds, realizes this is something that doesn't concern him, and closes the door.

"Not bad," Cordy tells Buffy with a raised eyebrows. "And you're right about the no-glowy," she adds. "The last person I cleansed fell in love with me and we did some stuff I don't think either of us want to think about happening." Cordy cringes at both the memory of sleeping with Connor and the idea of repeating it with Buffy. "Anyway, that's not why they sent me."

"Who's they," Buffy asks suspiciously.

"The Powers, silly. By the way, big fans. But they see some dark clouds on the horizon. Their words, not mine."

"And they sent YOU to help me?" Buffy laughs.

"They sent me to warn you. You have to bring the old gang back together. Especially Willow. Get everyone in Rome so you can go after Devlin."

"The punk who killed Vi?" Buffy still doesn't see him as a major player and assumes he'll die on his own taking on other Slayers.

"Christian Slater without the cuteness. What was Spike thinking when he made him? Why would a guy make another guy? Angelus made guys, but that always bothered me, cause it kinda meant - "

"Shut up."

"Yeah. Pretty icky. And you never saw the part where the two of them - "

"I said shut up."

"You know, I'm very disappointed in you. I come all this way to help you and you can't even be nice to me."

"So this Devon's - "

"Devlin."

"My new Big Bad. Now what? I track him down and kill him?"

"Pretty much."

"Wow. That's something I couldn't have thought up on my own Have fun on your ride back to Cloud Nine."

"He's different. Remember how in high school the best athletes were always unpopular girls who tried harder because they had to ta get attention? He's like that. He's not hot, the way we like our vampires. He's not really that strong. But he's got this geek brain that's really scaring my bosses. They say if you don't take him seriously, the little critter could take over the whole world. I know. It's a bit much."

"So another baddie wants to destroy the world. Nothing I haven't handled before."

"Not destroy. Rule. At least the evil demon part. You want to deep six that evil demon part, and he's the one thing standing in your way."

"Just him? So what's the problem?

Devlin stands in his motel room in Elyria, a small town forty miles to the west of Cleveland just off Interstate-80. He hunches over maps of Cleveland he's placed across the bed. Wood's house and the high school one mile east are circled in black marker. Possible sites for attacks are identified by red dots. He checks the phone book on the desk for more places of business. Leks stands outside with Kit watching the male vampires horse around in the parking lot.

"I can't even stay in my own room," Leks complains. "There's two beds, and he ain't gonna use even one."

"Your brother seems lonely."

"He likes it that way."

"Has he had girlfriends? Other than, you know, that Slayer?"

"Sure. But it always ends badly. Usually he gets dumped. Then he has to kill her. Unless she's human. But what's more humiliating than getting dumped by a human? I swear. Sometimes I wonder if he's really my brother. He's the exact opposite of Spike."

"They both fight good."

"Yeah. That's true. And don't get me wrong, Devlin can be wild when he wants to. But Spike- "

"Yeah. Spike," Kat says with a smile.

"No. Oh no. He tried to kill you., honey."

"I know. But he's just so sexy, beating people up like that."

"Beating vampires up. His own kind."

"But that's the thing. Taking on ten humans, no big deal. But ten vampires, who all want you dead. That takes guts."

"He sure didn't have guts like that when he fought Buffy," she responds bitterly.

"I thought that was The Name That Shall Not Be Mentioned?"

"By you guys. Me and Dev, we got a personal connection to her. Especially me."

"Why you?"

"You know."

"Ri-iight. Speaking of which, I'm gonna pay your brother a visit." She takes Elektra's key and enters.

"Elektra, I told you - oh. Hey Kat."

"Are you busy? I can come back later."

"No. It's cool. Sit down. Just not where any stuff is." He has papers strewn across the room. "I'm glad you're here. There's something I needed to tell you."

"Really." She walks up to him.

"It's about your new leadership post."

"Oh."

"And this." He opens the dresser drawer and pulls out two Uzis. "I bought this from our erstwhile gang allies before things went south. I obtained the parts to convert them to automatic. And the magazines."

"You want me to use those?"

"One of them."

"I've never - "

"It's easy." Dev picks up a gun. "Just like taking a picture. Point, and click. Then hold, until the magazine drops. Nothing to it." He hands her the unloaded gun to get a feel for the weapon.

"So this is all you wanted to talk to me about?"

"The FARC - these guerrillas in Columbia, they like to conscript teenage girls into their army. But a lot of girls choose to join. The life of a warrior seems to exciting. Plus, they get fed better than at home. Anyway, they form these elite strike units that penetrate deep behind enemy lines for surprise attacks."

"Teenage girls. Who fight. Like Slayers?"

"Like you. Like Elektra. You're special. You've been Chosen. Just like them."

"No. No no no no no. I'm not like Leks. I don't even know my parents."

"By me. I chose you. I chose you because I want you to stay alive. There are three kinds of vampires in the world today: fodder, Slayer killers, and guerrillas. The fodder doesn't matter. But the killers, they need the guerrillas to take some of the pressure off. Otherwise they die, and everyone dies, and we lose. Your role is just as essential as Leks's. You have to stay alive, and keep the other girls alive, and draw as many Slayers into Cleveland as possible."

"What?" That sounded an awful lot like being fodder. "Why would I wanna do that?"

"To torment them. You kill - and disappear. They get frustrated. They hate when the bad guy gets away. So they send more and more Slayers. And one night - " Devlin takes both guns as squeezes the triggers and points the guns across the length of the room. "The greatest massacre of Slayers the world has ever seen. Buffy's whole operation falls apart. All because of you. You'll be the biggest hero in the world. Vampires everywhere will speak your name with awe. Kat the Slayer slaughterer. Kat the warrior. Kat the legend."

"Wow." After a few seconds of awe, she comes to her senses. "Wait a minute. I can't do that."

"Why not? You've stayed alive this long. You know the city better than the Slayers. The only hope they have of stopping you is a concerted civic effort to root out all vampires. Which they have. But which they're losing. Have you watched the news? Thirteen year-old black boy shot fourteen times by four white cops. Sure, he was armed. But not at the time they shot him. Okay, that's not on the news yet. But when it comes out - " Devlin knew this detail from Elektra. He laughs. "Cops won't be working for the Principal no more." Kat knew he hired the guards for protection. But she didn't know they could serve a purpose if they failed to protect. It was genius. She takes off her coat.

"You're brilliant."

"Bite me." At first she takes this as an insult and slaps him, then realizes it was a request. She bites his bare right shoulder. He closes his eyes and leans his head back. "Oh god, that's good." He goes bumpy and they stare at each other. He puts her on the open bed. She wriggles with excitement. He takes out a knife. That struck her as strange. "Don't worry. I'll be real gentle." She was willing to be adventurous and try something new and kinky. Dev puts his hand on her bare stomach and makes a cut just below her navel. He leans down and licks up the blood. Kat gets excited, thinking this is a prelude to something. But Dev stands up and walks away. "Thank you."

"What the fuck," she exclaims as she gets up. He tosses her jacket to her.

"I'm sorry. I can't afford distractions. "But, thank you. I needed that."

"Ooookay. See ya." She backs towards the door. Dev realizes he may have freaked her out and rushes over.

"It's not that I don't want you. It's that I do. But I need to deny my desires before battle. All of them. That way, I can explode on the enemy. Like I did with Vi. You understand, right?" Kat can see the effect her presence has on him, and grins. Perhaps he fights better frustrated. She puts her right index finger to her stomach wound and sticks the finger in his mouth."

"So. Is that worth a dead Slayer?"

"Better."

"Two?"

"You'll see." Kat leaves the room. Outside, Elektra's trying to convince the other vampires not to eat a nice family that's pulled in for the night.

"If you lay a finger on them, I will kill you," she vows. Vi throws a star into the neck of a vampire approaches their car. He yelps in pain. Everyone backs away. "That was quick," she says to Kat.

"We laid on fingers," she replies with a twinkle in her eye. Elektra smells the blood in her mouth and sees her wound.

"Kinky. Me, I don't care for foreplay. Hey boys! I know another way we could pass the time."

"So Elektra was sired by your sire," Gretchen says to Spike as they sit on the porch. He's clearly uncomfortable with her. "Then why does she call you dad?"

"I bit her, Dru fed her."

"So you killed her?"

"Yes," he concedes.

"You killed a lot of people. Thousands. Tens of thousands."

"Spike's been a very bad boy."

"How many of them did you bring back?"

"Not many."

"So this Devlin was special?"

"Yeah. He had talent."

"And you can just tell who has talent?"

"Sometimes. Shouldn't you be inside with the girls?"

"You never explained how you let that demon get away." Spike's pretty beat up from the fight.

"Things got rough. It was dark. Both of us had better things to do, I suppose." He takes out a cigarette.

"No smoking."

"Bloody hell! We're outside."

"It's Robin's rules."

"Like the one about someone keeping an eye on me, in case I decide to go solo?"

"Does it look like I could stop you?"

"Let's just say I'd rather not find out." She can be quite intimidating, even for Spike.

"She's definitely some sort of spirit," Willow says to Buffy on the phone.

"A good spirit?"

"I'd have to look it up. The glowing's a good sign."

"Try experiencing it up close."

"It's always feels weird the first time a woman gets inside you." They both think about this a bit too long. "Can we forget I just said that?"

"Please."

"Anyway, she came to tell you we should get the Scoobies back together?"

"Basically."

"But then we'd be doing less evil-fighting. Besides, Roma's got no bad guys. Except for that Bishop who let all those boys get raped in Boston. But that's not our problem."

"You're in Brazil. Giles leaves tomorrow for Moscow. Xander flies to Madagascar on Friday. I'm going to London on Monday."

"And Kennedy's going to Buenos Aires on Saturday. We're busy."

"But it's not the same."

"It's better. Not that I don't miss you. And Xander. And Giles. But we're doing a lot more good this way."

"We are weaker apart than together."

"You think he's gonna kill Xander? Or that the Teenage Whore will?" That's their nickname for Elektra, who has her own demeaning nickname for Buffy. Willow does worry about Xander getting seduced again by an evil demon.

"I'm sure she's too young for him. Also, he knows better now."

"Yeah. These days he does a complete background check before going out on a date."

Elektra had no such need. Nor did she feel a desire to play against type. Lying on the floor of the motel room are seven exhausted, sleeping male vampires. The eighth is under Lex, and having the time of his life. He finishes, and she falls next to him. "You are so fucking amazing."

"Yeah, I know."

"I'll kill a Slayer for you, cover you in her blood and lick it off," he vows, cuddling with her.

"Sure you will." She turns around to face him. "You were great." He smiles. She throws him down to the floor. Leks doesn't cuddle. "Now I need to rest. The sun's already up." She pulls the sheets over her head and goes to sleep, still not quite satisfied.

"Wake up sleepy head," Kelly says to Spike as she flips on the lights and runs down the stairs into the basement. "Time to go to work." Spike sees the sunlight coming in through the window.

"Do you have any bloody idea what time it is?"

"Seven-thirty."

"In the morning! Wake me when it's seven-thirty at night."

"We have to find that rat bastard you sired while he's still asleep. You can sense him and all, right?"

"Not on an empty stomach." It's been over a day and Wood still hasn't fed him.

"I think I heard a mouse down here. You can have that." Kelly had never been a fan of Spike back in Sunnydale. She grabs him and pulls him out of bed.

"Okay, okay. Can I at least get dressed?"

"Sure." He grabs his shirt. "And bring the blanket."

At ten, Devlin's alarm goes off. Someone gets up in the next bed. Dev grabs him by the throat. "Hey! Easy, partner." Dev looks down and recognizes the face.

"Oh." He lets go. "How did you get in here?"

"Leks gave me her key. She's in the boys' room."

"And you weren't interested in being there with her?"

"She's not my type."

"Oh. Dev smiles, then gets a little nervous. "Neither are you. I like 'em taller. No offense."

"None taken. I've always been the man in my family with the smallest gay following." Even the Master had fans among the leather set.

"I'm Sister Ray."

"Like the Velvet Underground song?"

"Yeah! You're a fan?"

"Of course. I'm a New York punk from the old days. But I thought the younger vampires never have any taste."

"Tell me about it. Nothing but techno and rap-rock." Dev realizes they made a connection, then gets nervous again, then realizes how he can seize this opportunity. Ray looks at the clock.

"In the morning? Who gets up at these hours?"

"I have someone to pick up. Go back to bed. We'll talk when I get back about tonight."

"Can't we talk about tonight tonight?"

"We could, if you didn't have an especially important part to play." Now Ray won't be able to get back to sleep. Dev puts the blanket over his head and runs out to his car, which has windows that tint extra dark in response to sunlight.

Robin's truck doesn't have this feature. So Spike lies on the flatbed, covered by his blanket. If he senses Devlin, he's supposed to hit the back window. He knows this is as much about humiliating him as finding a Slayer killer. Kelly follows the map Robin drew, extending out from their house in a loose spiral. Spike estimated he could sense Dev from five miles away. Wood estimated Spike was exaggerating, so he based the path on a two-and-a-half mile radius, intending to cover the entire greater metropolitan area. Dev comes into the center of town when Kelly and Spike are in the eastern suburbs, so they miss him. He pulls up to the downtown bus station. Waiting nervously under an awning is Val. She smiles when she sees his car. He opens the passenger door and she literally leaps in, then hugs Dev and kisses him on the cheek.

"The trip was hell. But I'm so glad to see you!"

"Me too." He races to the on ramp for I-90 West. "So how does it feel to kill a Slayer?" Granted she only shot one, and with the help of two other vampires she killed afterwards.

"It is sooo empowering! I feel so strong. Like I can do anything!"

"I felt the same when after I killed my first Slayer." He smiles. Dev relishes how killing a Slayer can make a vampire feel like a Slayer does when she is first called. As Buffy empowered the Potentials, he intends to empower more than a few vampires.

"So what am I doing all the way out here?"

"I need a girl who can handle a gun."

"To shoot another Slayer?"

"Not exactly. Around the Hellmouth, things get more complicated."

Kelly gets within five miles of Elyria, but that's way out in the boonies, and it's been a long day of driving. All that's achieved is tiring out and pissing off Spike, which is fine by Robin. At nightfall, they group heads to the high school in Tremont a mile east of Robin's house. Spike informed Wood and Gretchen that Devlin liked to draw an enemy out and then attack their base. Spike assumed Dev would take the house for the base, but Wood also sees the school at risk, and decides to cover all bases. While they are gone, the house is protected by four police officers with tranq guns and tasers. Spike, the two Watchers and the six Slayers sit and wait. Kelly eventually convinces Wood to let Veronica and her do a quick sweep of the Hellmouth, which they find eerily deserted. Even the demons have taken flight.

At nine pm, Elektra meets with her eight conquests while Dev brings together the six women and Ray. "Not all of you will be returning tonight," she says to the boys. "But I will. And for those of you who survive . . . "

"By this time tomorrow, all of you will still be here. But I won't," Devlin begins.

"There is nothing sexier than a vampire who has just killed a Slayer. You will be able to do things beyond your wildest dreams. Or even beyond MY wildest dreams. And that's saying something."

"You win by surviving. Slayers must kill to keep of their spirits. Every day you live is like a little defeat for them."

"I will take one Slayer. My brother Dev takes another. The other girls and Ray take two more. That leaves two for the eight of you. Four on one. If you can't kill a Slayer with those odds, then you don't deserve to live."

"Kill a Slayer, they send more. Kill a Watcher . . . they may send another. Kill that Watcher . . . they probably won't. No Watcher means no leadership, no tie to the adult world, to the cops and the community. The Slayers will be on their own. Like you. Except they're not designed to function on their own. But you are."

"I know some of you are thinking of running."

"No," several men yell.

"It's okay. It's natural. But if you run from these Slayers, you'll just be running towards some other Slayers. They are everywhere. They are as bloodthirsty as you are. And they won't stop until every vampire is dead. Or until you stop them. The only way to survive is to do what I did - stand up, fight and kill."

"I'm not looking for any heroes tonight. Just soldiers. Vampires willing to play their part in the mission."

"What better place to make a stand? What better time than now, among your friends, among people you trust? What better time than when you are strong and together and they are weak and divided? Cleveland is yours by right. Take it back!"

The vampires then piled into five cars and went their separate ways. Devlin led the women to a bar in the Seven hills neighborhood on the southern edge of the "Hellmouth District" and five miles south of the school. The plan was very simple. Four women would enter with their vampire faces exposed, shocking patrons, who would further be shocked when each of the women partially drained a man. When Dev hears the gasps and screams, he enters, blocking those racing for the exits, and fires his two pistols in the air, then points the guns in a fleeing couple's face. "Everyone remain calm and nobody dies! On your knees!" The people slowly comply. "Except for you four gents. You can just lie there if you want," he jokes about the victims. Dev pistol whips one man to show he means business. "Barkeep! I want you to call the police and tell them four vampires have attacked your fine establishment." He points a gun at the man. "Go ahead! I promise they won't think you're crazy. Also, after you call, I will begin releasing some of the hostages. Make that most of the hostages." Devlin still has his human face, so they assume he's not a vampire. What would a vampire need a gun for, anyway?

"I'm bored," Susan tells Wood.

"Can we do another sweep of the 'Mouth," Katie asks.

"Can we stay loose by beating up Spike," Jessica wonders.

"Yeah," Olivia adds with a smile.

"No," Wood responds.

"No point getting Slayers hurt," Spike quips, trying to hide his alarm. Kelly senses his fear of the adolescent mob and finds it remarkable how the tables have turned. Everyone was scared of him in Sunnydale. The phone rings.

"Finally," Katie exclaims.

"You heartless, insolent twit," Spike scolds. "That means someone's died."

"Or that we get to save someone," Veronica responds.

"Since when did you care about people dying," Kelly asks. Robin talks things over in the other room with Gretchen. Spike enters. They both look at him as if he's an intruder.

"I thought I'd go in the adult's room. Wut happened?"

"Four vampires and a man with a gun," Gretchen reports.

"Devlin."

"Time to go," Robin tells Spike.

"No. He'll be gone by the time we get there. I have to wait until he's closer."

"Then we send Sue and Katie," Gretchen decides. "They're itching to get out."

"Okay," Wood agrees, upset that she didn't let him make the call. Wood emerges and tosses Katie the keys. "1746 Rockside Road. Head south until you hit it, then take a left."

"How many?"

"Four."

"No problem."

Devlin had emptied the bar of everyone but the four bitten men and four female hostages, then raced off to his next destination: a restaurant in Mount Pleasant, three miles southeast of the school. He headed north on Interstate 77 and made a call to his sister, who was outside a restaurant in Mount Pleasant, three miles southeast of the school. "So they got a table and everything," he asks.

"Even asked for the wine list," she replies. "Can I start the killing?"

"Always impatient. Have fun. But not too much."

"Just enough juice to get me where I'm going." Elektra reenters the restaurant and bites the maitre'd, draining and killing him. "Let's go boys," she says before walking out, ostensible to scout the Slayers and give warning.

"He's that way," Spike reports. "But he's moving."

"To the west," Gretchen asks.

"Yes Gretch."

"That's where the house is."

"Don't call me that."

"Sorry luv."

"He'll be in for a nasty surprise," Wood predicts, breaking up the two bickerers. And he thought Gretchen would be keeping the peace between Spike and himself. The phone rings.

"Round two," Spike announces. Wood runs in to see the Slayers. Gretchen walks in just in time to see Jessica and Olivia run out.

"What happened," she asks, upset that he didn't consult with her first.

"One dead at this fancy place on Chagrin Boulevard." Dev chose it because he liked the street name. "Bitten by a young woman."

"Elektra." As Jessica and Olivia run east, Elektra races west at a far faster pace and along a slightly different route. The Slayers miss her by two blocks. Meanwhile, Devlin meets with four men on Canal Road in the Angle, a neighborhood at the western edge of downtown, one mile north of the high school.

"Ready for some fun," he asks them.

"Just don't hog the Slayers for yourself," one of them jokes. Dev can tell they're eager, which he finds funny since this is a suicide mission for them, though they don't know that. He points up at their target, a gym on the third floor of an office building.

"Suit up." The four of them go bumpy. They climb the stairs and burst in on the unsuspecting members. Dev pulls out his gun and shoots up all the mirrors for fun. The other vampires start beating on the muscle heads. One of the guys hits a vampire with a twenty five pound barbell, knocking him down. Dev picks up a fifty pound barbell and breaks the man's skull. He then hurls the weight across the hundred foot-length of the room to demonstrate his prowess. The other vampires take the cue and start using weights as weapons. Dev grabs a 45 pound weight and throws it, like a discuss, through the window. It lands on the roof of a car. "That should get their attention."

"He's there," Spike announces when they get the third call from the police. "I can bloody feel it."

"Then go get him," Wood suggests.

"Sure. Come along," he says to Kelly and Veronica.

"Stop," Robin orders. "He attacks the base, right? We'll stay here just in case."

"Five vampires. Against only me. Bollocks for the vampires," Spike confidently announces before heading off.

"What's taking them so long," a vampire whines.

"Can we start killing," another one asks Dev.

"Why not? No point being on guard." The vampire doesn't realize Dev's being sarcastic and bites a female member they prevented from escaping. Just then, Spike scales the building and enters through the shattered window.

"Workout's over."

"Aw man," a vampire bellyaches. "Where are the Slayers?"

"Kill him, Leks'll go down on you if you do," Dev promises. He snaps a wooden rod in half and tosses them to two vampires, who go for the kill based on the pledge. Spike grabs one stick, flips it around and stakes the vamp wielding it, then spins round, weapon in hand, parries the thrust from the second vampire and takes him out. Spike looks at the other two vampires, causing them to flee. Then he looks for Dev, who predictably leaped out the window while Spike was briefly engaged, his trench coat billowing in the air. Spike does the same, leaving the terrified and awed exercisers behind.

While Spike is on foot, Dev takes the Mustang south, under I-90, then turns left and goes under I-77, bringing him into Tremont. He passes Lincoln Park, which is across Starkweather Avenue from the school, and pulls into the parking lot, where Elektra waits, perched on top of a lamp post twenty feet in the air. She jumps down to the ground. "What took you so long?"

"No Slayers. Just Spike," he reports as they briskly walk to the building.

"So he's out of the picture."

"We have to be quick. And we have to handle Slayers."

"I'm always up for a challenge." Dev takes out his phone and calls Kat.

"Time to go," he tells her before hanging up and ripping open the door, which is locked from the outside. This sets off the alarm until it's closed.

"After you," his sister insists.

"They're here," Wood announces, briefly hearing the alarm.

"So much for Spike," Kelly says derisively.

"So now we get to kill 'em," Veronica adds with a smile. "Not some flunkies, but THEM." She feels honored to have the chance to slay Vi's or Rona's killer. Kelly grabs the Scythe, Veronica takes a stake, Wood and Gretchen grabs axes and swords, and they're off, listening for footsteps. Gretchen looks up.

"They may be in the ducts."

"That only happens in movies," Wood assures her.

"They're that way," Veronica says. They rush down the darkened hall. Two vampires become visible sixty feet away. Everyone closes. Elektra's fanged out, but Dev prefers to keep his human face on as much as possible. At twenty feet, the male figure looks familiar to Gretchen. But it's dark, so she can't get a good look until he's almost at arm's length. Then a chill radiates down her spine and her heart practically stops.

"Hermann?" It's the first time she's laid eyes on her brother's face in twenty seven years.


	3. Finishing family business with the Woods

1"What gives you the right to call me that," Devlin asks Gretchen.

"He was my brother." Devlin gasps as he looks her over. The hair, the eyes, the face. It was his sister, all right. All grown up. And dedicated to killing his kind.

"Let's kill 'em already," Kelly shouts impatiently, brandishing the Scythe. They have Rona's and Vi's killers trapped. She doesn't want to squander this golden opportunity.

"Hold on," Robin orders. He has some idea what this moment means to Gretchen. But only some. This would be like if, instead of killing Nikki, Spike turned her into a vampire who then attacked Robin. It other words, it was even worse than his situation.

"Put down your stupid fireman's ax and let's have a real fight," Elektra responds to Kelly. Dev holds her back with his left hand.

"It's you. Oh my God, it's you. I used to wonder what became of you. Gretchen Oden. You changed you name. That's why I couldn't find you."

"You killed mom and dad."

Gretchen remembers that night. She was sitting in the back seat of Jenny 's parents' car. They were driving her home from a seventh grade dance. When they turned onto her street, the first thing she saw that was odd were the flashing red lights in what looked like her driveway. As they got closer, she could make out the police officers. There was a local news truck on the other side of the street. Jenny innocently wonders what's going on. Her mother quiets her firmly. Jenny doesn't understand. She can't recognize a crime scene. The car stops atthe police checkpoint. Gretchen gets out and runs past the officers onto her lawn. She sees the ambulance truck. A detective spots the anxious girl.

"Oh Jesus," he mutters.

"Only to spare them the agony of learning my fate," Devlin tells Gretchen. "You were never supposed to find out. But, well, looks like I'm not the only fighter in this family."

"EX-family," Elektra snaps jealously. "Spike said when the cop told you, you screamed bloody murder. Like a banshee."

"Spike," Wood asks. He looks at Gretchen. Apparently they had even more in common. Gretchen can't believe she had a conversation with the vampire who killed her family.

"You must be Nikki Wood's son," Devlin realizes, eager to switch attention away from himself. He fears his sister will try to kill him, and he'll have to kill her.

"Mummy was right," Elektra gleefully screams.

"Darling Nikki," Dev adds. "Like the Prince song. 'I knew a Slayer named Nikki, I guess you could say she was a sex fiend'," he sings, trying to provoke an attack so he fights Robin instead of Gretchen or the Slayers. Wood resists the provocation, but just barely. "I was sired the very next night. With your mother's blood. She's the one to blame. Your mother kills Spike, I live, the rest of my family lives, Elektra here never turns, Vi and Rona never get killed, Gretchen has a normal life . . . it's a whole different world."

"I think I should go thank her," Elektra tells her brother. "Where's she buried?"

"You monster," Gretchen calls Devlin, trying to separate the vampire from her brother and make him easier to kill. "You raped your own sister."

"Oh no," Devlin shouts indignantly. "She wasn't supposed to be home. Inga, home on a Friday night? And Spike was the one who raped Inga. He tried to sire her. I had to snap her neck to stop him. By the way, where is Spike?" Wood's asking himself the same question. Devlin finds himself welcoming his father's presence for a change, since it would throw the good guys into complete disarray. Or maybe they'd try to kill him instead of Devlin.

Fortunately for Spike, he's busy. The two vampires saw Spike chasing Devlin's car and erroneously thought he was fleeing from them and their awesome power. So they gave chase and tackled the stunned vampire. "Now I know who the two bloody stupidest vampires in the world are," he says as he gets up.

"I'm sure you'd like to hear Spike explain why he chose me. Your mom - that's obvious. But I was a nobody. Just a good son and loving brother with his whole life - "

"Kill them. Kill them both," Gretchen coldly orders

"You're learning so fast," Spike says to Elektra as they walk down Fifth Avenue with Dru and Dev. "One month, and she's like a pro."

"Daddy like my bedroom moves," she says with a smile.

"I wusn't talking about those," he responds with a chuckle. Devlin takes his mother's hand and points up at a man on the twelfth floor of a building. She laughs when he talks about running up there and throwing him out the window.

"Divinely messy. Who'll clean it up?"

"I could have Leks lick his guts up. She'll eat anything."

"Hey!"

"Now, now. You two play nice," Spike cautions. Leks hugs him.

"You always take her side."

"Bollocks."

"You spoil her. You let her get away with murder. Figuratively." Literally, that means nothing to vampires.

"I am a very strict father."

"To me."

"Becuz you never do what you're told." Elektra has taken advantage of Spike's distraction to leap up on a lamp post and swing from it like a gymnast, to the amusement and astonishment of hundreds of passers by.

"This is just what I'm talking about," Dev says, pointing up at his sister. Spike laughs. Dru looks cross. Spike notices this and stops laughing.

"Honey. Get down from there." She keeps swinging. "Daddy says get down." Elektra does a superhuman dismount and sticks the landing.

"I love being a vampire! That's right. You heard me. We're vampires!" She goes bumpy for all to see. Devlin would be mortified if he wasn't already dead. Dru grabs her and the four of them dart onto 52nd Street.

"I can't believe you draw attention to us like that," he whispers. Dru slaps Leks on the wrist.

"Is there something wrong with attention," Spike asks. "In case you haven't noticed, we're ALL about getting the attention of the bloody humans."

"The right kind of attention. For killing. Not showboating."

"This from a boy who hasn't done a decent massacre in over a year!"

"I'm sorry if I like killing the strong, dad. What's so fun about slaughtering the helpless?"

"Everything," an exasperated Spike replies. Elektra rushes off to the east.

"Oh no. Not this again," Devlin gripes. The three of them give chase, but Leks is already faster than any of them.

"Honey!"

"Deary!" Leks runs into them while returning from her journey at 52nd and 2nd.

"I got a score."

"Women," Spike asks.

"Children," Dru queries.

"Cops," Dev wonders.

"All of the above. Except for cops. It's a family."

"How delightful," Dru coos.

"They're right along First."

"Must be lost tourists," Spike comments.

"They're walking to a parking lot on 56th. So we have to hurry."

"How come she always gets decide what we do," Devlin whines as Spike leads their family to this prey. They proceed to a lot along the water where the family's car is. Elektra stalls the father by asking directions while the rest of her family catches up. He tries telling her he's from out of town and therefore unable to help. He gets in with his family and tries to shut the door, but can't. He's confused. Then Dru rips the door clear off. The children in back scream when they see the monsters surrounding them. Spike uses a brick to break the windows. The four of them each take a victim and pull them out of the car. Spike drains the screaming mother, Dru the bewildered father, and Elektra the ten year-old son. Devlin takes the seven year-old daughter in his arms and runs away, carrying her to the nearest police station. When he returns, the family finishes their meal. Elektra's away joyriding in the car. Dru looks at her son angrily.

"Wut's wrong," Spike asks her. "The boy wanted a chase. We all like one."

"He set her free."

"Then where did I get this blood," he asks, pointing to his lips and chin.

"From a vagrant. To hoid your sin."

"Is this true," a concerned Spike asks.

"No." Dru slaps him. "Okay. I let one go. So what?" Spike slugs Devlin, who falls to one knee.

"Bloody failure. I give you the easiest job, and you can't even do that."

"We needed a survivor."

"A survivor is a bloody failure! Why do you let me down again and again? I swear, I've never been so sodding disappointed in my whole life."

"I we killed them all, who'd know?"

"Everyone. Who else kills families in this town?"

"She dies, the pain stops. She lives, the pain goes on forever."

"Nothing goes on forever! Except us." Elektra screams with delight as she drives the car off a pier. "Bloody hell. Go save your sister. Keep her from sinking to the bottom."

"But the water's freezing."

"Save your sister, or sleep on the street, like the urchin you killed," Dru threatens. Devlin realizes he has to get back in his parents' good graces."

"Fine. But think about it. She'll spend her whole life traumatized by tonight. The pain will live on. And so will the memory of us. And our evil."

"Go," Spike orders as the car sinks under the East River.

"Fine. But the pain lives on," he says to his mother before running off and jumping in, knowing the part of her not disappointed with his disobedience understands.

Kelly attacks Elektra, who's been making faces at her. She swings the Scythe. Instead of ducking, Elektra corkscrews to her right, putting her hands and feet on the wall. When Kelly goes for a stake, Leks flips up onto the ceiling and crawls past Kelly and Gretchen, landing behind Gretchen. The Watcher elbows the vampire in the mouth, turns and swings her ax for her neck. Elektra ducks and sweeps out her legs. Kelly runs over and kicks Leks in the chest, knocking her down. The Slayer positions herself between vampire and Watcher.

"Come on," Leks taunts while on her back. "I'm really great in this position." She arcs her back and prepares to vault to her feet, but instead does a few break-dancing spins on her head before suddenly rising to her feet. "But I'm even better on top."

Veronica charges Devlin and tackles him, then goes for the stake. "Impatient. That always works in my favor." He reverses and gets on top, looking over his shoulder at Wood. "This is how my daddy killed your mommy." Wood swings his sword for Devlin's neck. Dev ducks and rolls off the Slayer. They both get up. "Careful. I've killed a Watcher. Though I've also killed two Slayers, so I don't know which one of you should be more afraid," he quips. Veronica attacks again, throwing left and right punches that Devlin blocks. But she lands a right kick to his chin that sends Devlin into the wall. He just laughs, stretches his arms out against the wall and looks to his left. "You doing okay, sis? How 'bout you, Leks?" This angers Elektra, which makes her fight better. Veronica finally attacks. Dev waits to the last instant and spins to his right, landing a right roundhouse punch to her face. She turns and tries a right hook kick that he blocks. Robin comes from behind, forcing Devlin to run away from both of them. Kelly chases him down, at which point Devlin grapples with the Slayer before flipping her to the ground and racing back towards the Slayerless Wood. He stands back-to-back with Gretchen, sword held up, waiting for Devlin just the way he waited for the Turokh-hans during the final battle in Sunnydale. Dev stops just out of range. "Your move." Robin looks past Devlin, who turns and grabs the madly pursuing Veronica. She throws him to the ground, but Dev pulls her down with him, making it impossible for Wood to behead him. She gets on top, but he grabs her wrists. "Can you tell your father over there that he's kind of creeping me out." She breaks free and punches him in the face. "Either he goes, or I make him go." He fends off a few more punches before she lands another one.

Thirty feet away, Leks leans back, dodges left and right, and does a forward flip to avoid the blade of the Scythe. After the flip, she lands a quick left roundhouse kick to Kelly's head. "That ax is so lame." Leks realizes she now has Gretchen behind her, and turns to look at each of them with one eye. "Look. The Axes of Evil," she puns. Once they both move towards her, Leks leaps on the wall, then the ceiling, then the other wall, then the ceiling again, then lands behind Kelly. When the Slayer tries to stab for her heart, Elektra lands a backflip kick to her chin. "What can I say? I'm just faster than you."

"Use your feet," Gretchen beseeches Kelly, knowing she has become too reliant on the Scythe because it always worked in the past.The Slayer takes the advice and tries a right hook kick, followed by a left roundhouse. Leks steps back and blocks both kicks.

"Predictable. No wonder you need that fireman's ax." She calls it that because of its red handle. Kelly lands a leaping straight right kick to Elektra's face. "Rona only had a stake, and where's she now?" This provocation sends Kelly charging at the vampire with the Scythe. Leks steps the the side, grabs the Scythe and pushes the Slayer into the wall. They struggle for the weapon a while before Kelly pushes Leks back. She goes on the attack again, but Elektra runs up the other wall and does a back flip behind the Slayer, who turns and swings. Leks ducks and sweeps Kelly's legs. While the Slayer is down, Leks tries to attack Gretchen, but Kelly grabs her left ankle, bringing her down. While they're both on the ground, Kelly swings for the vampire's neck and narrowly misses, smashing up a good chunk of tile. Both of them get up. "I'm bored. That's a first with a Slayer. Can I just kill you and get this over with?"

Devlin knows that with Spike in hot pursuit, he doesn't have much time. "Tell me dear," he says to Veronica. "Why do you fight?" She tries to kick him in the chest, he grabs her foot and spins her in the air. She quickly gets up, blocks his right hook and lands left and right punches to his face. "Is it to save complete strangers? Or to save people you know and care about?" Veronica, who generally regards talk from a vampire as gibberish, doesn't take the hint. She seeks to capitalize on her recent success. Devlin backs up, blocks two punches and dodges a straight right kick by moving his head to the left. She lands a left hook kick to his ribs and a right uppercut to his stomach. But when she tries a left hook for his face, he takes her wrist with his left hand, grabs her hair with his right and smashes her face-first through the wall until her hears her skull ping against a pipe. Dev hears Robin's sword coming for his neck and ducks in the nick of time, knocking Wood back with a right kick to the sternum. Devlin, always so careful, goes bumpy, growls and leaps through the air. Robin raises his sword above his right shoulder, but Dev is quick enough to grab Wood's hands with his left hand and his neck with his right. He uses his superhuman strength to drive the Principal's back into the wall. Wood is about to break his hands and the sword free, so Dev takes his right hand off Robin's throat and puts it on his left forearm, pulling Robin's arms directly above his head. At the same time, he leans in and bites deeply into the left side of the Principal's neck, pulling back as quickly as he swooped in. Wood sinks to the ground and lets go of the sword. Blood spurts from his neck.

Dazed from the hit, Veronica takes a few seconds to recover, just enough time for Dev to do his damage. Dev turns to face her, fearing an attempted stake. Instead, she lands a leaping right kick that sends him into the wall ten feet to the left of Wood. It is only now that Veronica sees what he has done. "Principal Wood?" He grimaces, puts his left hand to his neck and stoically tries to act like it's no big deal.

"I'm fine Roni. Kill him and I'll be even better." Dev's taken advantage of the respite to walk to the other side of the wall.

"He's not fine, Roni. He's a dead man. And you can't save him. As if you ever could."

"Kill him," Wood whispers, pulling out his cell phone with his right hand.

Meanwhile, Kelly and Elektra go at it furiously. Kelly swings the Scythe in her left hand for Elektra's neck. Leks ducks, but Kelly kicks her in the mouth with her right foot, then adds a left kick to the side of her head. Elektra responds with quick right roundhouse, left hook and straight right kicks, all of which are blocked. "You're getting predictable," Kelly taunts. She lands a right cross, dodges Elektra's left jab and lands another straight right kick. Elektra grabs the Scythe handle with her right hand and reaches for Kelly's throat with her left. Kelly grabs her right arm, and they spin around once before Kelly hurls Elektra into the wall. A sullen Leks, suddenly feeling overmatched, gets up and shuffles counter clockwise, towards Devlin. Kelly stays between the vampire and Gretchen.

"I smell blood," Elektra says with a smile. "A lot of it." Kelly takes advantage of the distraction to attack and land three straight punches and a right roundhouse kick, knocking Elektra down yet again. She can feel the power of the Scythe coarsing through her. At the same time, Veronica takes to the offensive against Devlin. The Slayers work side-by-side, pounding brother and sister. Devlin just keeps his hands in front of his heart to prevent a staking and takes the blows. With the Slayers occupied and successful, Gretchen sees Robin on the ground. His wound is on the other side of his neck, so she doesn't yet realize how much trouble he's in.

"Who's on the phone," she asks right before getting close enough to see the pool of blood to his left. "Oh no."

"Tell them you severed your jugular vein," Devlin yells, blocking Veronica's punches and dodging her kicks. He's impossible to kill when playing all defense, as he is now, having accomplished his goal. "Most vampires go for the caratid," he explains while ducking a right hook and taking a left kick to the stomach. "Blood's got more oxygen." She lands a right uppercut to his chin. "But the jugular's much more deadly." Veronica kicks him in the groin and goes for the stake. Dev winces as he grabs it with both hands. "Careful, little girl," he says as she tries to push it into his chest. "I killed Vi with one of these."

"And then you stuck it up her," Elektra taunts before getting hit in the face by the Scythe's metal shaft. She's decided to stay so close to Kelly that the Slayer can't properly wield the weapon, causing their struggle to devolve into grappling. "No, not that. The other one," she jokes. Kelly swings the blade for her neck. Elektra, seeing an opening, ducks and sweeps Kelly's legs. She turns to her left to face an attacking Gretchen. Elektra grabs the ax handle as the blade approaches her neck and bites the right side of Gretchen's neck. Dev hears his sister cry out in pain as the stake is two inches from his sternum. He head-butts Veronica, runs to his left, grabs Elektra by her hair and pulls her away from Gretchen. "What the fuck," Leks screams. Now both Slayers and a Watcher stand in front of them.

"You're not going to let him die alone, are you," Devlin asks his enemies. Gretchen immediately turns and runs over to Wood. She takes off her shirt and uses it to try and stop the bleeding. But the laceration is two inches long, and difficult to close with what they have available. "Aren't you curious about death," he asks the two Slayers.

"He's coming," Elektra announces, grabbing Dev, who wants to stay to watch his victim die. "We go NOW!" Leks streaks down the hall and out the door before the Slayers can blink. Dev has no choice but to run after her. The Slayers give chase. Devlin pulls out his gun and fires two shots back at them without even turning to look. Both bullets go into Kelly's abdomen, and she falls down. Devlin escapes outside just as Spike is running inside.

As he runs to the door, Spike hears the gunshots. Not good. The first thing Spike notices when he opens the door is the smell of blood. A lot of blood. Even worse. He knows he's too late, and races over the Robin just in time for Spike to be the last thing he sees before closing his eyes. "No. Bloody hell, no." The shirtless Gretchen looks up at Spike with rage in her tear-filled eyes.

"It was the devil's work," she says. Immediately, Spike remembers hearing that more than a quarter-century ago. He recognizes the anguished eyes. He knows who she is.

"No. This isn't bloody happening." Veronica rushes over.

"Kelly's fine. She just needs a . . . Principal Wood?" She sees Gretchen's tears and bursts out crying herself. Spike runs away, dashing past Kelly on his way to his children.

"What the fuck was that," Elektra demands to know as Devlin drives. "The whole point of this was to kill fucking Watchers."

"Draining takes time. That Slayer would have gotten you first."

"It's because she was your sister. I'm your sister, dammit!"

"I can't believe she's doing this. Fighting vampires. With Buffy. Now both my families have turned against me!"

"Spike wanted to kill her back in the day. But you said nooo. And now she comes back to bite us."

"I can use this."

"She's the enemy. We kill the enemy."

"I can find a way to exploit her. I just know it."

"Yeah. Kill her and it pisses Buffy off."

"Gretchen Oden. She changed her name."

"Big deal. So did you."

"In the emails she's powerful. Like, top tier. Above the formal Watchers. She lives in Rome. At the center. With the trainees."

"All more reasons to let me KILL her."

"Rupert Giles doesn't like email, so she writes for him."

"I wonder if he's fucking her," Leks says with a laugh. Dev slaps her with the back of his right hand.

"You do love her! After all this time. And after she tries to kill us! That is so like daddy."

"This is major, Leks. I just found out . . . give me a chance to adjust."

"I was so killing her. By the way, she tastes good for an old bird." Dev pulls his arm back to slap her, but relents. Instead, he licks Wood's blood off his front teeth.

"The principal wasn't so bad," he jokes. "I think tonight was a complete success." Just then, the car shakes as they are rear-ended. "My Mustang!" They get rammed again. Dev speeds up. Leks looks back.

"It's Spike. Daddy doesn't give up."

"No way I'm letting him stop us." Spike tries to pull along side to their left. Dev swerves to cut him off and nearly forces Spike into the far railing. He slows down and gets behind Devlin again as they snake around slower moving cars at over 100. Dev pulls down the window, takes out his gun and fires three shots at Spike's front left tire. He misses, put takes out a headlight. "Take that, father!" Spike gets close enough to bump and nearly spins Dev. "Fuck!"

"Relax," Elektra says.

"Relax? Relax," Dev growls as he negotiates a crowded highway at 120.

"Yes. Relax. It's all taken care of."


	4. The vampire who made Faith cry

1Spike finally had Devlin right where he wanted him. Dev was in his sights, with no means of escape. He tried to fire his gun at Spike's car, but couldn't do much damage.

"Turn off here," Elektra calmly tells her brother.

"What? Why?"

"Just do it, buttmunch." He slams on the brakes and leaves the highway. Spike does the same, nearly, running another car onto the shoulder and nearly into the wall.

"That did a lot of good."

"Relax. It's coming."

"An ambush?"

"Stop guessing and keep driving. I've done the thinking for both of us."

"That's a first," Devlin says with little confidence.

"You're mine now, Devy boy," Spike says to himself with a smile, turning off his lights as Dev turns off his. He can still follow the car by its sound. "Nowhere to run, sonny. Nowhere to hide."

"Wrong," he hears from a familiar voice. He looks into the back seat, and Dru, who's been hiding on the floor, grabs him and pulls him away from the wheel as Spike tries to go around a curve above an embankment. The car rolls forty feet down the embankment, tossing both vampires through the window. Both are cut and bruised from the fall and burnt by the explosion that soon occurs. Back in the front car, Leks laughs and claps. At first, Dev can't believe his ears.

"No. It's a trick."

"Did you hear the explosion, dumbass? It's over."

"How the hell did you do that?"

"Mummy did it."

"What? Mom's here? I have to see her."

"She says you're not ready."

"Not ready! What do I have to do? Kill a third Slayer? A third Watcher? Kill Buffy?"

"When you're ready, she'll see you."

"Oh, I'm ready." Dev screeches to a halt in the middle of the road.

"Don't be stupid."

"She needs our help. We can't leave her alone with dad."

"She made him. She can handle him."

Spike and Dru rise to their feet, and stand ten yards apart. "You! I should've bloody known!"

"Our boy has great days ahead of him. He'll make us proud, he will."

"One problem with his plan - "

"Wut makes you think it wus his?"

"You're alone. I can kill you."

"You and wut army?" She giggles under her breath. "The little girls' army?" Spike charges Dru, but she tosses him aside. He's exhausted after a night of chasing and fighting and nearly getting blown up.

"Oi'm not grandmummy. And you're no Angel," she says of his feeble attempt to kill his sire. Spike growls and charges again, tackling Dru and going bumpy. After a few seconds, she puts her right foot to his chest and pushes him away. "You're weak. Oi'm strong. Loik when I first laid oies on you, my William." Spike and Dru slowly circle round each other five yards apart, illuminated by the burning wreck. Finally, Spike stops.

"Why am I fighting you? Why do I care? You just sent your boy and your girl off to their deaths! Chances are, you'll never even see them again. So this is a sad night. But not for me. For you! But you probably already know that."

"You can't protect her. It's killing you insoide."

"From Dev," Spike asks with a chuckle. "I know you've always thought a lot of this boy, but cum on! Him, and Buffy? Are you insane?" Dru looks cross. "Sorry. Low blow. Like making a bloke drive off a cliff."

"Why can't you be happy for him. He does wut you want done. The headmaster? Your son wus just defending you." Spike charges. Dru effortlessly hops twenty feet back. Spike continues to charge. Dru steps to the side and pushes Spike to the ground.

"Our family will live on after him." With that, Drusilla runs away. A dispirited Spike chooses not to chase. He takes off his coat and hurls it into the dirt and gravel.

"Bollocks!"

Two cop cars in front of the house. That meant four officers. And maybe a Slayer or two. Against three vampires, with four automatic weapons. Plus two firebombs. Kat knows she must finally step up and lead.

"Ray, you come from the East."

"Which way is East?"

"Left. No, their left. Your right. Right. That way. That street. Come down it turn left, open fire. Viv, you come from the West."

"Where?"

"This street. Just go down this street and turn right."

"And what do you do?"

"I come from the north. From behind the house."

"How do we know when to go? I mean, what if you don't make it and we shoot too early?"

"You walk. I run."

"How fast," Ray asks.

"As fast as I can."

"I mean us."

"Just a normal walk. That way, I'm in place before the shooting starts. Once you guys pull the trigger I go for it."

"That's actually a pretty sweet plan," Viv confesses.

"And complicated," Ray adds.

"Just do what Dev says. Point and click."

"I wish he were here," Viv says with a nervous sigh. "I hope he's all right."

"Don't worry about Dev. He can take care of himself. Plus, he's got Leks. Why are you two distracting me? We have to go and do this before the Slayers get back."

"Which way am I going? East or west," Ray wonders.

"That way," she screams. They had been whispering to avoid attracting attention. Kat runs off. Ray and Viv shrug, pull out their Uzis, which makes them feel more secure, and head in opposite directions. Kat races around the block and through the property behind Wood's house. She hides between the back of a garage and chain link fence between the properties for what feels like an eternity, holding a lit lighter in her right hand and the Molotov cocktail in her left, with another one standing upright on the ground.

Ray catches the eye of one officer, who thinks he sees a young man openly brandishing guns without firing them, something a gang member would never be stupid enough to do. "Police! Freeze," he yells, pulling out his own weapon. The other three officers instinctively follow suit. Ray races behind a parked car.

"Fuck," Kat spits out under her breath. "It's Ray. I know it's Ray."

"Remember, aim for the head," the commanding officer reminds the others.

"Good advice," Viv says, carefully hiding behind a large tree at the end of the block. She opens fire with both guns, causing the officers to hit the deck. The shots sail over their cars, over their heads, and through the front windows. Ray stands up, turns around and fires as well, peppering the two cop cars and shattering their windows. Viv wisely stops her fire and crosses the street, trying the roll up the officers' right flank. After five seconds, Ray's magazine is depleted. The officers fire in his direction and at where Viv had fired on them.

Behind the house, Kat throws a firebomb over the fence and into the kitchen. She can't see the flames. "Fuck," she says, shaking her head. The gunfire stops. She frantically flicks the lighter, gets it going, and lights the second bomb.

Having scurried across the street, Viv pops out from behind another three onto the sidewalk and fires at the two closest officers, hitting them both in the legs and chest. The other two officers turn right and quickly return fire. A bullet hits her in the chest and she goes down, crawling back behind the tree. "Ow!" She leans towards the sidewalk, points both guns and fires. But one jams and the other one's magazine falls out after its final few bullets are expelled.

Kat leaps onto the fence between the properties, flies off of it towards the back and side of Wood's house, and hurls the firebomb in her left hand through a second story window into a Slayers' bedroom. Looking over her shoulder, she can see the flames go up before her feet hit the ground. "Sic Semper Slayers," she yells as she runs past the officers, leaping over them and bounding off the roof of one of their cars. She turns right, towards Viv, who grabs her.

"They shot me!"

"You'll live. Now run."

"We're killing them. They shot me."

"Not tonight, honey." An alert officer spots them as his partner radios for backup and an ambulance and fires, hitting Kat in the right arm. They both run. As they turn left at the end of the block, they hear an explosion as the fire Kat set in the kitchen reaches the gas line. She quickly spins around the see the flames.

"Burn baby burn," she yells, raising her arms, which she finds is now painful. Meanwhile, the cops also call the fire department and help their wounded comrades across the street and away from the conflagration.

"What took you so long," Ray demands to know when they finally meet up where they started.

"I've been shot," Kat exclaims, pointing at her bloody arm.

"You were winged. I was shot," Viv complains. But as the out-of-towner, she gets no sympathy. Ray looks over Kat's arm.

"Can you move it? Maybe you should sit down."

"I think it got my heart," Viv counters.

"It's okay," Kat tells Viv. "Dev's been shot tons of times. He says it heals in like a day."

"What happens to the bullet?"

"I don't know." Neither likes the idea of a chunk of lead permanently inside them. "But it can't be bad. Look at Dev."

"Yeah." Viv smiles and her eyes light up. Ray shakes his head and sighs, annoyed at their idolization of a guy he hardly finds hot.

"And he says the pain reminds you that you're really alive inside." Kat grimaces as she moves her injured right arm and puts her right index finger inside Viv's entry wound.

"Ow!" Kat pulls her arm back and licks the blood off her finger, smiling. Viv also smiles nervously as the pain dissipates, giving her a small thrill. She slowly takes Kat's right hand in her left, and squeezes. She puts her right hand to the wound on Kat's bicep. She shivers with pain and excitement. Ray rolls his eyes.

"That was such a rush," Kat says as they hear the fire trucks arrive.

"Getting shot? No, it sucked."

"Burning down the house."

"I know. I mean, I don't. Cause I didn't. But what I did was - "

"Yeah yeah yeah, you're high on life. Can we get a move on," Ray asks, nervous about pissed off cops and Slayers. "Let's have our bonding moments where we can't get a stake in the back, okay girlfriends?"

"So why didn't she attack him sooner? Before my car got wrecked," Dev asks Leks.

"It's not wrecked. You're driving, aren't you?"

"But my back end's trashed. I mean, Spike could tell whomever to put out an APB for a red Mustang with a bashed rear."

"And the cops would pull us over, and we'd kill them."

"I'm a murderer. I killed an important member of the community. They'd get a helicopter on us and put it on TV and wait until I ran out of gas. Then we'd be surrounded and it's the end of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid."

"So we switch cars."

"This is my Mustang!"

"This is why I don't get attached to possessions."

"My mint condition- well, one-time mint condition - 1965 Mustang convertible."

"Give it a rest. By the way, where are we going?"

"D.C."

"Washington? Why? That town's boring"

"We need to make contacts. So I can attack Buffy on other fronts."

"Can't we do that ourselves?"

"We will. The big night's coming."

"Cool. Can't wait for the ultimate throw-down. Can you pull over at the next rest stop? I'm hungry."

"Just what we need - the enemy knowing what road we're on."

"I'm so very sorry," Giles tells Gretchen over the phone while Buffy sits and stares at the wall.

"No time for that," Gretchen replies, standing outside the smoldering ruins that had been the Slayers' home.

"But the girls."

"They all came back safe. Kelly's crushed. She blames herself."

"I know this must be incredibly hard for you."

"Seeing what used to be my brother kill Robin?"

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to sound insensitive."

"No. No, I didn't mean to either. Look, what's happened has happened. We have to find them and put a stop to this. I'm having the police fax you a picture of him, so you can put out an all-points or whatever. He's going to attack again. It's only a matter of time. We need to be prepared, Rupert."

"Again, I'm sorry."

"Did you get the picture?"

"Yes, er, I-I did." Giles takes a long, horrible pause. "Can you excuse me one moment?" He runs into the library where Dawn is. Buffy runs after him. "Is that him?"

"Yeah. That's him. Why?"

"That's him."

"Yeah," she responds, confused. "That's Jason."

"That's the vampire who killed Robin." Dawn sits down in stunned silence. "And Vi. And Hilda. And Gretchen's family."

"No. No. That's Jason."

"No!"

"Bullshit."

"You didn't."

"Did too," Harmony insists to the other secretaries. "And I knew Paul and Luiz and Sidney. We hung out. And . . . did stuff together."

"So you hung out with a Slayer," one of them says deflatingly. "That's lame."

"No. I hung out with them. We went out to clubs and got into fights and stuff."

"So what's he like," a more credulous one inquires.

"He's cool. And tough. He likes guns."

"Guns. That's lame. What kinda vamp needs guns?"

"It works for him, okay? He's always got ideas about stuff. And he never stops poking Buffy. Well, not the way Spikey poked her. The bad way. I mean, the good way. The cool way."

"Were you there when he knee-capped those Slayers?"

"Guns are lame."

"Not when you use them against Slayers."

"I don't know why he didn't just kill them."

"He's killed some. All by himself. And with his whiny little sister. Who I stole Spikey from. She's still jealous of me."

"Did you sleep with him?"

"Well, yeah. We were dating for, like, months."

"I mean Devlin."

"Oh. No. Not yet," she says with a smile. "But he loved flirting with me. I think he really respects me because I stood up to Buffy."

"Killing Slayers is so sexy."

"He uses guns. He fucks a Slayer. That's all so lame."

"Is there a nest around here," Elektra asks as they stand in desolate Anacostia on the north bank of the Potomac River.

"There's a subway stop a few blocks from here at RFK. You can go there if you want. I need a moment alone."

"With your car?"

"We have a lot of memories. Remember when we drove from Alaska to Tierro del Fuego?"

"And you can get it fixed. You don't have to push it in the river."

"Push it in the river? How disrespectful do you think I am?" Devlin pulls out his gun and shoots the fuel line. Then he shoots into the trail of gasoline, causing the car to explode. The force sends Elektra falling to the ground. She quickly gets up and dusts herself off. Dev watches the car be immolated and cries.

"You are such a drama queen."

"She thought he was gay," Xander says to Giles and Buffy as they sit at the conference table that morning and try to make sense of the multiple layers of bad news that morning. "But he was a vampire. I can see that. Look, I'm just trying to lighten up the mood. Not that it should be lightened. Robin's dead. He was killed by Spike's spawn - "

"Stop calling him that," an annoyed Buffy interjects.

"In Dawn's defense, I could not tell either," Giles offers. "And it was during the day."

"Indoors," Buffy replies.

"She met him outdoors as well."

"When it was cloudy." She's not ready to forgive her sister for befriending her new Big Bad.

"Was she supposed to be on the lookout for vampires vacationing in the middle of Slayer Central," Xander adds. "And it's not like they did anything. I mean, like you said, she thought he was gay."

"He told her he was," Giles notes. "In fact, I believe I recall him briefly flirting with me," he adds with a shudder.

"Enough," Buffy yells. "Nothing more about the past." This included Spike's role in producing her new enemy. "We can't change it. People are dead. We can't change that. What we can do is kill Jason."

"Hermann," Giles corrects her, mistakenly giving the name of Gretchen's brother.

"Devlin," Buffy replies. "And the other one. You know, the teenage whore. Until they're slayed, we don't care about anything else."

"Maybe Cordy was right," Xander proposes. "Maybe we need to reunite the Scoobies."

"Perhaps I should recall some of the more experienced girls," Giles offers.

"No. We hold the line."

"What about focusing all resources on killing these two vampires?"

"If we start abandoning cities, it will make the vampires think they're winning. They'll be even more dangerous. Bad guys'll be coming out of the woodwork. The Slayers have to stay put because the vampires have to say scared."

Spike steps out the elevator. His hair is singed. Part of his face is covered in ash, his t-shirt's torn and his hands show burn marks. "Rough night," Harmony asks with a smile. "I'm just glad to see you survived that fall off the cliff after letting the guy whose mother you killed die."

"How the bloody hell - ?"

"It's online. See? Oh, and Devlin called me." Harmony glows. "When we met, I thought he was just a dweeb. But now I know he's a dweeb who gives Buffy big headaches, and I like it when she hurts. It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside."

"Tell Angel I need to talk," he orders between gritted teeth. She presses a button on her phone.

"Spikey's here. His mission when all kablooey." Fred, concerned, rushes out of the meeting. Wesley, concerned that she is concerned, follows.

"Are you okay?"

"Just a little cartoon violence, luv. Nothing I can't handle."

"You can handle that this Watcher woman knows you killed her family and turned her brother into a Slayer-killing vampire," Harmony asks.

"What was all that," Fred wonders, confused.

"Spike wanted to kill them all, and he was right," Harmony reports, eager to be the center of attention. "But Devlin's like a softy so he let his sister live and now she's grown up and turned into a vampire hunter. Isn't that ironic?"

"No," Gunn replies. "Irony is when something you don't expect to happen happens. This is entirely what I would expect, given my own experience."

"I thought all Watchers were English," Fred says.

"Not all," Wesley replies. "But I don't know of any American female Watchers. And all the American male Watchers were killed by the First."

"Her name's Gretchen Oden," Harmony reports. Wesley looks started. "Does that help?"

"The Valkyrie," he intones.

"The wut," Spike asks.

"That's what our Rome office calls her. She's Rupert's closest confidant. There are rumors that they are romantically-linked."

"Oh bloody hell," Spike sighs.

"I bet you really wish you killed her now," Harmony jokes.

"You're spying on Buffy," Angel asks Wesley.

"No, you're spying on Buffy. I'm spying on the Council."

"You're spying on Buffy," Spike exclaims to Angel.

"Eww, you want details, you Slayer-loving freak," Harmony cringes. "Devlin says she's sleeping with some Italian prince. At least it's not another vampire. Which is surprising, knowing her."

"So this American Watcher woman wants Spike dead, and she's got the means to do it. Is that what you're trying to say," Gunn asks, getting to the point.

"Kill Spike," Fred exclaims. "But he's good. And this Buffy girl wouldn't allow it."

"My sources tell me the Slayers are more loyal to the Valyrie," Wesley explains.

"Stop calling her that," Spike yells. He finds it ominous.

"Why do they call her that," Angel wonders.

"The word is that she is quite intimidating. Even without at least thirty Slayers at her beck and call."

"I can protect you if you stay in the city," Angel offers.

"I don't need your bloody protection."

"Yeah," Harmony replies. "He probably wants to go hide inside Buffy's skirt again."

"This is a nice place," Devlin says to the lead vampire and his four minions.

"I shared it with two guys when I went to college. Then I killed them and told the landlord if he made me pay any rent, I'd do the same to him."

"Very industrious. Much like something I'd do," Devlin replies. He feels he has a lot in common with Derrick. They both were turned in college. They both prefer to live like humans. "The crypt and warehouse scene never appealed to me."

"It's so dirty and damp."

"I know." They both smile at each other. Elektra notices some minions making eyes at her.

"Tell your boys if they so much as make eye contact with me, I'll chop off their heads before they can blink."

"Can you leave us alone," he asks, and they comply. "They're very good. Very disciplined."

"Hope you're not too attached," Devlin says darkly.

"So what's this about," Derrick asks. "You setting up shop?" Elektra laughs.

"In this dump of a town?" She laughs some more. "Sorry."

"We actually want you to leave," Devlin explains

"Run away?"

"We must concentrate our forces. In the northeast corridor, that means putting them in New York and Philadelphia."

"I could do New York. For a few months."

"You will be going to Philadelphia."

"Like hell I'm goin' to Philly! And like hell I'm taking orders from you."

"Think of it as a suggestion, not an order. It will be quite the scene. Vampires from here, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Virginia, North Carolina. - "

"I don't like any of those places. I like it here. Now either help me to kill the Slayers, or get out of my town." Devlin's shocked at how quickly things turned hostile. He chuckles and lights a cigarette.

"For a man sharing a town with a pair of Slayers, you don't seem very concerned with your safety."

"Gotta fight 'em somewhere. I'd rather fight them here."

"I respect that. But it's precisely that sort of territoriality which has already gotten so many vampires killed. The city will still be here when the Slayers are gone."

"And so will I. You leave ash on my floor and your head ain't getting out of here on top of your neck." Dev laughs and blows smoke. The larger man walks over and looks down at him. Leks steps between them.

"Okay boys. Enough of 'Who's Got the Bigger Dick.' I think we both know who'd win that contest." She looks at Derrick and smiles. "Can you leave us alone," she asks Devlin. He walks out sullenly. One minute later, he is joined by his sister.

"Not as good as you thought you were?"

"He doesn't like white chicks."

"But what about his minion?"

"He doesn't anything with her. None of them do anything with each other."

"How dreadfully boring. Don't feel bad. It's his loss."

"I don't believe this," Ray says to Kat in her motel room in Elyria while Viv's in the shower. "The boys are all dead."

"All of them?"

"Yeah. But four girls made it. Isn't that suspicious?"

"Girls just have better survival instincts."

"No, your hero Devlin set it up so all the guys would die." On this point he is dead on.

"Except for you. And so what? They were all straight."

"So were you," he quips, glancing towards the shower.

"Nothing happened. We just fooled around a little. I mean, we were all so high after last night. What options did I have? Better her than you."

"That's for sure. So you're still afraid of vagina. That makes two of us. Oh great. Listen to me. Not even one night after your big awakening and I'm already the funny gay eunuch."

"You're not a eunuch."

"I might as well be, with these man-hating Slayers staking everything with a penis."

"What did you mean by awakening?"

"Oh please."

"I mean, it was an awakening. Just not in that way. I learned I could be a leader. I learned I could do more than just run away. I could fight back."

"Yes, it's all very empowering. Go tell Oprah. I hear she likes that inspirational bullshit."

"Didn't you feel it too?"

"We're still running from Slayers."

"But now we're also making them hurt. They take our home, we take their home."

"And they get the point and sign a truce. No they don't. They come at us even more pissed off than before."

"Whose side are you on?"

"We had two Slayers. Your heroes kill them. Now we have six. Let's say we kill all them. Do what Vivy did in NYC. Bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang. You think this Buffy bitch won't send more?"

"She'll try. But what if they refuse? What if they don't wanna end up like all the rest? They can quit and go home, and we'll leave them alone. But it doesn't work the other way. We can't surrender, but they can. That's their weakness."

So these Slayers will just let us go on killing?"

"They'll be so few of us left they won't notice."

"That's comforting," he says sarcastically.

"What's comforting," Viv asks, coming out of the bathroom with a towel around her body.

"Sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt pillow-fight time."

"What's his problem," Viv asks Kat.

"Hey I got no problem with this little arrangement you two have. If we're gonna die any day now, might as well enjoy each other while we still can.

"He doesn't believe in Dev," Kat explains.

"Doesn't believe in Dev? How dare you?" She slaps him without thinking. "I-I'm sorry."

"No. I am. For not being brainwashed. Things would be so much easier if I could believe in the Savior and his nubile boy-crazy sidekick. But I like my messiahs a little hotter."

Jeta had assumed Gibraltar would be a respite from the Slayers. Ironically, Faith thought the enclave would afford her a break from vampires as well as the meddling authorities. At least the latter was still the case. So far.

Jeta dodges a right kick and blocks a right punch. Faith lands a left elbow to her right eye. Jeta tries a left cross, but Faith backs away. Jeta realized a little while back that she couldn't kill this Slayer. But that didn't mean she could not hurt her. Jeta glimpse Faith's immediate future (which was another reason she knew that a killing wasn't in the offing).

"You're wearing ashes and sackcloth."

"Not my style." Jeta blocks a right hook kick but Faith lands a left roundhouse kick.

"Someone you love is dead."

"Doubt it." She throws a right punch. Jeta grabs her arm. Faith turns around and grabs Jeta's head with her left arm, throwing her to the ground. Jeta gets up and backs away. Faith pulls out her stake. "The people I love can take care of themself."

"A phone call, and you're crying."

"See – clearly you don't know me." Faith attacks. Jeta backs up, blocking right and left kicks, then left and right punches. They lock arms, Jeta goes bumpy, Faith tries to head-butt her, but Jeta arches her neck back and pushes Faith away.

"I knew you would do that." Jeta wipes the blood from under her nose and, having been battered enough by this Slayer, turns into a raven and flies south across the Straits. Faith can't believe her eyes.

"Oh no you don'," she yells, chasing the bird to the edge of the cliff. "No one pulls this Dracula bullshit on me and gets away with it!"

Devlin sits at his computer in a Langley, Virginia Starbucks, typing in a new entry for his fans to read. A man sits down at his table.

"You've gained weight."

"A desk job doesn't agree with me."

"They turned you into an analyst?"

"They don't have much use for me anymore. Defense runs the show. They have for the last decade."

"Even after their spectacular cyborg failure?"

"There was a thaw. Then Rumsfeld came in."

"He's interested in your line of work?"

"No. But he likes power for power's sake."

"And you know what's powerful? Slayers. Dozens of them. At your beck and call. Then Defense will pay attention to you."

"Sweet dream. But I hear they work for some people who don't have a high opinion of the United States government."

"I know. Isn't it suspicious that Buffy Summers left America the first chance she got? It shows a certain disloyalty, headquartering her organization on foreign shores. Especially in these times."

"You came here to try to get the government to turn on the Slayer Queen? I don't work for vampires."

"They work for you."

"You did."

"I came in very handy, if I recall correctly."

"Your country's grateful for your service."

"Doesn't the government protect its agents?"

"You were never an agent. According to us, you don't officially exist. Can't do favors for someone who doesn't exist."

"What if I could do you a favor? Would you reciprocate?"

"Is this your pipe dream about going back to Afghanistan? Vampires are bad for hearts and minds campaigns, with all that killing and bloodsucking they do."

"I've given up on that. What I want is what's in both of our interests. No private citizen should be allowed to accumulate the kind of power that Buffy Summers has. You know that. And when the time is right, I want you to do something about it."

"We can protect you," he finally offers.

"I can protect myself."

"Then why come to me?"

"To tell you to keep your eyes on this Slayer. You'll know when to pounce, if the day comes. In the meantime, do her a favor. There are five vampires living in a third floor apartment at 18th and U Street. Here's the address."

"Whose side are you on," the agent jokes.

"Whose side are YOU on," Dev responds with a wink.

"Hey brat. Is Giles there?" A seething Dawn leaves the room and goes down to the training area.

"It's for you."

"Who?"

"Faith," she says with a scowl.

"Oh dear." It's only a few seconds after Rupert leaves that Dawn realizes why his expression changed when he heard the na

"I'm so sorry," Giles tells her.

"Sorry for what?"

"They haven't told you."

"Told me what?"

"Faith. Faith, I don't know how to says this," he begins as her heart races. She can tell what's coming. It's just what the bird-vamp said. "Robin died last night."

And still, it came as a shock. "What the fuck?" She thought it was Wesley. Sure, she loved Angel more, but he had a far lower chance of perishing. The name of Robin Wood had never occurred to her as a loved one.

"It was a vampire. The same one who killed Vi."

"Wait – Vi? She's dead too?"

"Oh my. I suppose you haven't been kept in the loop." Which was understandable, since she was on the lamb. "Things have gotten a little out of control in Cleveland. But Gretchen and Kelly will contain matters. It's not the end of the world. Though it may feel like it to you right now."

"Who's Gretchen?"

"Never mind. I'm rambling. I'm terribly sorry about Robin. We all are. I know how you must be feeling right now. I know exactly."

"You know the vamp who did this," she says with uncontained rage, her eyes welling up.

"His name's Devlin. Wait. You're not going to - "

"He's in Cleveland?"

"No. He was last seen fleeing east," Giles shakes his head. "I don't know why I'm telling you these things."

"Why wouldn't you," she says between angry sobs. "I'm a vampire Slayer. He's a vampire."

"You can't face him alone. He has a partner. She killed Rona."

"Rona? Giles, what the fuck is going on? Does B have her head up her - ?"

"These things happen. Slayers die. Watchers die. It's a dangerous business."

"So why protect me? You didn't give a damn about sending Rona and Vi and Robin after this monster. I faced Keikistos - " she imagines the vampire who could do all this most be especially large, fearsome and ancient.

"Yes, well, er, this vampire is nothing like Keikistos. Quite the opposite, in fact. He's . . . crafty. With a penchant for gunplay and using the authorities." The significance of this suddenly dawns on Giles. "Which is precisely why you shouldn't get anywhere near him."

"You afraid he's gonna shoot me or, or call the cops?" That sounded cowardly and unfearsome.

"Yes. Actually, I am. He very nearly had Andrew put away." Faith shakes her head and wipes away tears.

"Why hasn't Buffy killed this motherfucker?" She wasn't one to take such acts of blatant disrespect by the bad guys so lightly.

"She will. If someone else doesn't slay him first. Faith, as someone who cares about your well-being, please don't return to the states. I know how much you must desperately want to hurt him, but if you try, he'll either avoid you or get you incarcerated."

"I can take that risk. I do every day."

"It's two vampires you'll be taking on. Not just him."

"Wait. You're right." Giles breathes a sigh of relief.

"Thank you."

"I need B. See you in Rome." Rupert wasn't expecting that. Neither, of course, is Devlin.

Devlin and Elektra stand in Rock Creek Park in the northwest corner of Washington, watching six vampires head up to Philadelphia in the stretch limo Dev had procured for them. Unlike Derrick, these vampires were impressed by his videotaped exploits and were eager to enlist. Brother and sister walk to their own limo.

"It's nice when they listen," Dev tells her.

"How long do you think they'll last?"

"A week. But they'll produce offspring, who'll produce offspring, who'll produce offspring . . . get enough in one place, the community becomes self-perpetuating. Like the situation in Sunnydale, only on a grander scale."

"Don't mention that place."

"You mean Sunnyvale," he jokes. "In Silicon Valley? Actually, they don't have too many vampires. The real estate's too expensive."

"I'm serious. Just hearing that name makes we weak" They get in the limo.

"It's just a word."

"Words have power. Some words are magic."

"I don't believe in magic." She laughs.

"You can't be serious."

He points his gun at her. "Magic can't stop a bullet."

"Sure it can."

"I'll believe when I see."

"Speaking of seeing." She opens the sun roof, stands up, sticks her head out and starts cheering, then sits back down, having had her fun.

"I'm hungry."

"You're always hungry."

"And you haven't eaten in days."

"I like the hunger."

"You're a strange, strange vampire. You like NOT eating blood. And actually pay for things like limo service."

"And planes. No hiding in the cargo hold for you anymore. When you charter the jet, you can close all the windows."

"And eat the other passengers."

"That would draw suspicion."

"We're vampires. We're supposed to do more than draw suspicion. We're supposed to have mobs chase us through the streets."

"Look how well that turned out for mother and father."

"I'm better than mummy at running. You're better than daddy at hiding. Together, I think we can succeed where they failed."

"Rio will be ours."

"Rio? We're not going to Brazil."

"That's where the witch is."

"The one who skins people?"

"You're scared."

"I believe in magic. And Europe. We're going to Europe."

"Avoid the witch so we can face the Slayer: out of the fire and into the frying pan. That's smart."

"There's four Slayers in Rio. And Sao Paolo. That's what the newslist says. We can't do that many."

"We'll have help."

"Not the right kind."

"We're not ready for Rome."

"We're not ready for Rio."

"Then we stay here."

"I've already fought like every American Slayer." Actually, she'd only encountered about half of them, which was still very impressive. "I need variety."

"I'm in charge."

"We're a team. And we need to keep moving. Before we find ourselves on the wrong end of a mob. Of Slayers."

Devlin smiles. "Has anyone ever pissed off so many people with superpowers as the two of us?"

"Brother, we're just getting started."


	5. Just like Devlin would have done

1Outside a large shed in Greenwich, England from which emanates trance music, Elektra works up a teenage boy before sinking her teeth into the ripe fruit. One hundred meters away, a tall man appears to be doing something similar to another ripe teenage boy. Leks decides to check out his form. The vampire is six foot five inches tall and weighs two hundred pounds. He is long and lean with shoulder-length black hair. His eyelashes are flush with mascara, and he wears silver glitter on his eyelids. On his legs are tight shiny silver pants, and on his torso and arms is long-sleeve black mesh shirt.

"Not bad," Elektra comments. "Though if you do it right, the grimace looks more like a smile, and not a cry of pain."

"You like it when they don't suffer," he asks in a thick Irish accent, looking in her direction, which causes his jaw to drop. "It's you."

"Who else would I be," she coyly responds, looking the specimen over.

"Elektra."

"You know me," she says with a smile.

"You came to free us."

"And you came to get high off this boy's E."

"Special K."

"Ooh. Ketamine. Gimme a taste." She kisses the vampire and sucks on his tongue, causing his eyes to bulge out. "Mmn. So what's your name, stranger?"

"Eamon. We met at a Cure concert in New York City. Disintegration tour."

"Funny. Don't remember. Though I'm thinking I should," she says, running her hands down his broad shoulders. He starts to tremble. "You're eager," she says, grabbing his groin. "Show me how eager."

"Right here," he nervously asks.

"Not that, silly. Well, that, maybe. Your face first." She wants to see how handsome he is when he's not bumpy, and to show Eamon how pretty she is.

"You're beautiful." She likes how he is in awe of her.

"And you're about to become the luckiest man on earth."

An hour later, two Slayers arrive after sympathetic police told them of the odd deaths that had become especially rare in recent weeks. It was the first double-killing in a month (rather than hunt in packs, the vampires had foolishly gone solo, thinking the Slayers couldn't find them all.) Robson was told of the additional "special characteristics," which meant it could be Elektra the Slutty Slayer-killer, so he communicated to his Slayers as best he could to be careful. But they felt the invincibility of unbroken success, and discounted their Watcher's warnings. They were about to enter the shed in the hopes of finding another vampire who could, under intense pummelling, reveal where the killer went. But Chelsea heard what sounded like a struggle around the side, and Brianne agreed to check it out.

What they found delighted them. The killer was stupid enough to stick around for a victory lap. Elektra's legs are wrapped around Eamon's waist, her back against the wall, her face contorted in pleasure. "Fuck yeah. Aww, fuck yeah. Oh . . . Fuck . . . Slayers." Elektra knew what it meant to see a pair of teenage girls coming her way. "Stop. No. Idiot. Stop," she tries to tell Eamon, whose eyes are rotated toward the back of his head and whose mind is on another plane. She finally pushes him to the ground with her feet, which then hit the ground. "Let's go, girls."

Elektra blocks Bre's right kick for her head and lands a left kick to the Slayer's ribs. She takes a right kick to the face from Chelsea, ducks a left cross and returns the favor with a right kick to the Slayer's chin. Then she preempts Brianne's roundhouse kick with one of her own, sending the Slayer spinning through the air before falling to the ground. "You're not nearly as good as the Slayer I killed," she taunts Chelsea, who lands a left jab. Leks blocks a right hook and lands one of her own, knocking the Slayer back.

Eamon hears the sounds of fighting, rises to his feet, snaps his pants up but doesn't dare zip them, and puts up his dukes, prepared for battle and ready to impress his new girl. He tries two right jabs. Brianne swerves her head to avoid both. He throws a left hook. She blocks it and sends a left kick into his mouth, knocking him back into the side of the shed. "Oh. So that's how ya want it," he says.

"Actually, I want you dead." Eamon blocks a left hook but not a right uppercut and jab, followed by a right roundhouse kick to the chest. "And that's what you're about to be."

Elektra, busy schooling Chelsea in the finer points of hand-to-hand combat, hears Eamon's unhappy groan, and the sound of fists hitting his pretty face, and realizes she must come to the rescue. Leks does a backflip kick to put some distance between herself and Chelsea and move her closer to Brianne. Then she turns and lands a left sweep kick to Bre's back just as she brandished the stake in her right hand. The kick sends the Slayer into Eamon, bringing her in unwanted contact with him. She tries to stake Eamon through his ribs, but Lek's grabs her hair and pulls Brianne backwards, sending her hurtling into Chelsea.

"Why you shouldn't wear ponytails, ladies," Elektra jokes. "On a more serious note," she hits them both simultaneously with a leaping split kick, "nobody interrupts my orgasm and gets away with it." She grabs her heavy purse filled with metal throwing stars and spins it around, nailing Chelsea in the left side of the head and Brianne flush in the face. Both Slayers fall down. Elektra grabs Eamon and runs away, knowing she can't take them both with such a weak fighter backing her up. They fall down in a ditch off the side of a road.

"Christ lass, you're gonna pull it off," he complains. Leks realizes the boy is too slow to keep up with her.

"You want me?"

"More than anything."

"Then you'll find me." She runs away, disappearing in a flash. Eamon looks behind him and sees two Slayers running his way. This was going to be a challenge.

"Just a little bigger than your old digs," Faith jokes as Buffy leads her around the compound and she listens to the echo of her voice down the hall.

"I'm sorry you have to be here. I mean, for this."

"Not your fault, B. We'll find the bad guys and slay 'em, just like old times." Giles comes rushing towards them. He's visible winded, having tried to get to Buffy as soon as possible.

"That was Robson. He's found them. Well, her at least."

"Robson's in England, isn't he?"

"They appear to be somehow using aeroplanes for transport."

"Yeah. So do I. What's the diff," Faith asks.

"The 'diff,'" Buffy responds, "is that vampires can't protect against direct sunlight if they fly. At least that's what Angel said."

"So what. Big deal. They're in England. Let's go there and kill them."

"We have, umm, we have like, what, four Slayers there," Buffy asks.

"Bonnie and Margaret are in Scotland. Brianne and Chelsea came upon Elektra and a, umm, vampire who was tall and, er, according to the girls, well hung."

"Sounds like my kind of vamp," Faith jokes.

"But that's not Devlin," Buffy points out. "He's short and, well, I'd imagine, small. Not that I'd ever imagine. He just seems like the type who overcompensates."

"How do they know he's- ," Faith wonders. "Oh."

"She is the teenage whore," Buffy points out cattily.

"We assume they are still together. And we will find them. Before the two of you will have the chance of doing the honors."

"So Charli,"

"Chelsea."

"And what's-her-name, killed this guy, and the teenage whore got away?"

"They both got away."

"So he can fight too?"

"Apparently, not so well."

"So what you're telling me is we have two Slayers who can't even take one of these vampires trying to fight them both?"

"They will have assistance."

"The others are coming back from Scotland?"

"That won't be necessary."

"Cause we're gonna be there by morning."

"That won't be necessary."

"That wasn't a question."

It took four hours of running, hitching rides on trucks and trains, hiding on rooftops and cowering in sewers, but Eamon finally made it up to Elektra's room in her five-star hotel in downtown London. "What took you? I've been bored out of my mind."

"So happy to see me," he jokes. She stands up and looks up at him.

"You're big enough. We're gonna have to teach you how to fight."

"I'm a better lover than a fighter," he responds putting his arms around her waist. She pushes him away.

"Fine," Leks responds, pulling off her shirt and unbuttoning her pants. "You want me. Take me." He smiles, runs at her, and is shocked to get kicked in the nose. "Come on big boy." She knocks him to his knees with a roundhouse kick, then slams the back of his head through the glass coffee table. "Trust me, I'm worth it." Due to the pain radiating through his skull, Eamon was starting to doubt that.

Spike storms into Angel's office. "We have to do something about this NOW."

"I know."

"I thought I could take Devlin on my own, but he's got Elektra, and Dru, and who knows who bloody else on his side - "

"Wait a second? Devlin? He's got something to do with this?"

"Something. Everything! We have to stop him. You and I. I hate to bloody admit it, but together we're the only ones who can keep this from getting out of control before it hurts Buffy."

"Buffy? What does she have to do with any of this?"

"Have you been paying bloody attention?"

"Spike, something more important has come up," Angel says condescendingly.

"More important? What the bloody hell could be more important?"

"Fred's sick."

"I think I met him," Faith says to Buffy in the plane. "In Boston – back in the day."

"When you say met – "

"He came on to me."

"And you – ?"

"Shot him down."

"Unusual for you, back then."

"He wasn't cute. Plus, he was different. He knew I was the Slayer, and yet he still came on to me. Fact, that's probably why he came."

"So this weird thing he has for Slayers goes back a while. By the way, why didn't you kill him?"

"I tried. He hit me in the head with something hard. Cut me, bad. Then he ran away. Couldn't chase while I was gushing blood. Little twerp's a cheater."

"Wouldn't be the first vampire you didn't kill," Buffy says disparagingly.

"Actually, he was. And it's not like you haven't missed with a few big ones, B."

"I'm sorry. It's just – this vampire's got me on edge. It's different, now that I have the whole world to watch out for. Anyone, anywhere can wound me."

"That was incredible. And I don't usually say that," Elektra tells Eamon as they stagger out of the shower.

"Fooking unbelieveable," he adds as he paws at her glistening body.

"Almost as good as the first."

"Almost?"

"We set a pretty high standard."

"We'll have to try to beat it with number three."

"You wish," she saws with a laugh.

"Stop. Right there. You're perfect." She walks into the living room.

"I'm more perfect in motion." She tries to put on a bathrobe but he rips it away. "So you wanna train naked? I'll go for that," she shrugs.

"I'll do anything for you, Leksi. Foit anything. Face the sun itself."

"I like my men without third degree burns. But a little bruising can be nice." His right eye is swollen shut, his left eye is black, his lip is swollen, his nose swollen and bloodied, and he has bruises and cuts on both cheeks from their one-sided training session. Eamon wraps his arms around her from behind and picks her up. Elektra giggles.

"And a little boitin'," he adds. Leks hits his nose with the back of her head as he tries to sink his teeth into her neck and throws him to the ground in front of her.

"So I'm playing the Slayer again."

"Ah don't wont a Slayer. I wont you." Eamon lunges at Elektra, who throws him into the wreckage from some furniture they broke late last evening. "A mean it, luv." Elektra smiles. Eamon stands up and slowly walks towards her. "Ah won't fight with you no more."

"Tired of getting beat down?"

"Well, yeah," he concedes. "I also wont to do things to you ah don't wont to do with no Slayer." A handsome vampire who wasn't attracted to Slayers. Now that was sexy.

"Again," she asks with a gaping smile. "Oh Eamon. You can't be serious."

"Look at me, love."

"There's only so much a man can take. There's only so much a woman can take."

"You're no woman. You're a goddess."

"Oh stop it," she says modestly. "Goddesses don't get to have this much fun."

"I've never felt this way about a woman loik I feel about you, Leksi. Oi've neva felt this way about anyone."

Robson went home with his Slayers. He left guards back at the office. He was very careful. Like a man who feared he was under surveillance. Now that Devlin was in town, that fear had finally come true. It also meant Devlin could not act right away. He spent the night searching for vampires, but could find none. The new Slayers had done some very thorough work in this city. All his old friends were gone. After a thorough above and below-ground reconnaissance, Devlin returned to the hotel with the last of the morning fog. He stepped into the elevator, pressed the 12 button, and waited for the door to close, when out of the corner of his right eye he caught sight of a girl sitting on a circular couch who looked vaguely familiar. And as she turns around and caught his eye, he realizes she might very well be one of the Slayers he observed the night before. The speed she displays as she races to the closing elevator door eliminated all doubt. When the door is only six inches open, Dev sticks out his right leg and kicks the Slayer down before she can grab the door with both hands, pull it open, and force a fight. Chelsea runs over, helps Brianne up, and yells in vain for the elevator to be stopped. Robson steps forward, calms them down, and orders two men into another elevator.

"It's okay," he tells them. "He didn't try to run. Now we have them both trapped."

Devlin leans against the wall of the ascending elevator and puts his hands to his forehead. He'd been outsurveiled! Beat at his own game. London was supposed to be easy. A break from the rigors of Slayer-fighting. On the other hand, his increasing respect for this Watcher only made him a more valuable prize.

The elevator opens, and Dev races for his room. He stops when he gets to the door and hears what's going on inside. "Even at a time like this," he says as he puts his card in and takes it out. "Especially at a time like this." He opens the door and sees his sister and a strange man facing him. "Oh good God," he bellows, slamming the door shut. "Can't you have the decency to keep it in the bedroom?"

"This is Eamon."

"Eamon. Irish?"

"County Wexford."

"Your reputation proceeds you."

"Thank you."

"That's not a good thing in your case." Eamon stares down at Devlin. "Get some clothes on," Dev orders as he contemptuously pushes his sister's hulking suitor to the floor. "You too, sis." Dev looks around and shakes his head. "Oh my GOD! There must be five, maybe ten thousand dollars worth of damage here."

"We trained. Hard."

"And did some other stuff," Eamon jokes.

"He's going to fight a Slayer." Devlin laughs at his sister.

"And how long do you think he'll last," Dev asks her, ignoring Eamon. "Fifteen seconds?"

"He's working with Pitt."

"When it comes to battle Pitt thinks with his head, not his pants. He'd only want Eamon for fodder."

"Hey shorty. I'm fooking here," Eamon yells.

"Yes. And for that you're about to feel extremely unlucky. "There's a Slayer in the lobby. Probably two. And probably that's not all."

"Big deal," Elektra counters, not at all phased. "They're rookies. I fought them both last night. You and me can kill them easy."

"Me too," Eamon chimes in. Leks rolls her eyes. "Oh cum on, Leksi! I thought you believed in me."

"Leksi," Devlin asks with a laugh. Then he gets serious again. "They probably tracked you home. I take that back. They probably tracked HIM home." Eamon realizes the Slayers let him escape, and feels deflated. Devlin pulls out his computer. "Now we're trapped, in broad daylight."

"By two Slayers. And maybe their Watcher. Isn't this what you wanted?"

"It's not just them, Elektra. We have many means of egress. They know that."

"What the bloody hell's an egress?"

"If it were just them, they'd have stormed the room by now."

"In which case you'd shoot them dead before I got a chance to have fun killing them."

"Exactly. Last night when I used the hotel intranet to hack on to their surveillance system, you said I was paranoid," he explains as he types away furiously.

"Having lived in London these past two months, oi have noothing against being paranoid."

"Shut up, human shield. This is family business." He types some more. "And apparently government business as well. Look at that, sister."

"He's cute. I suppose."

"See that bulge."

"I've seen better." She looks back at Eamon and smiles.

"I mean on his chest. It's a bulletproof vest."

"We got coppers?"

"Non-uniformed. MI5. Special division. At all the doors." Devlin glances out the window for an instant. Ground level right below us." He taps more on his keyboard. "Outside our room. In the sub-basement."

"Sewer access."

"They've got teams of two at every means of escape. They know we're dangerous - "

"Damn right!"

"So they'll force us to make the first move. If we get past the g-men, then we got the Slayers to worry about."

"And the dayloit," Eamon adds. He's visibly nervous, his hands shaking as he ties his shoes.

"It's okay," Devlin calmly says. "I've been in worse. We could be facing helicopter gunships."

"Don't say that," Eamon snaps. "Now we probably will."

"Hold on. Instant message. Evsey! You survive, you old sod! What's this about channel 2?" Dev turns on the television, and is horrified to see his and his sister's faces on the screen. "Aiigghh!" Eamon laughs at Mr. Cool losing his composure.

"We're celebrities," Elektra exults. "I'm famous."

"I can probably sell my story to the tabs. Don't worry, luv. I'll say you were the best. Cuz you were. Even if I die cuz I met you, you were worth it."

"Oh, Eamon," she puts her hand to his bruised cheek.

"Stop it! You're acting like teenagers."

"We are teenagers," Elektra counters.

"We have big problems. He's burst the wall between worlds. Just what I would have done in his position. I like him."

"LIKE him? Now I can't go to clubs. Can't go out at all. Everyone will think I'm some murderer." The negative side of notoriety is rapidly outweighing the positive.

"Aren't you," Eamon asks.

"Not a common murderer like they say. And that's not even a very good picture of me."

"So he's constricting our freedom of movement. We can deal."

"Now who's sounding like a teenager," Leks jokes.

"Everyone remain calm!"

"You're the one yelling," Eamon quips. Devlin gets out his two guns and all of his bullets. "We can hold out until night. I'll blow away anyone who tries to get in before then." He checks the vents, then looks at his computer again. "If they move, we'll know." Elektra screams and grabs her head. Eamon holds and comforts her.

"Very funny, sis. Now's not the time to fake a vision."

"She's coming. She's coming!"

"I found this other vampire under 'well hung,'" Dawn reports to Buffy over the phone as Buffy rushes with Faith down the tarmac at Heathrow. Buffy doesn't like the idea of her sister reading up on well-hung vampires. "His name's Eamon. He's Irish. Late teens. Sired in 1973. He's a hustler, basically. Screws for money and drugs. Real good at you-know-what, but not much else."

"Didn't you have homework last night?"

"I also researched Devlin, to see what he does when he's under siege."

"How did you know about that?"

"Robson told me. He called for Giles, but Giles wasn't there, so we got to talking. I like him."

"How much sleep did you get?"

"Actually, I didn't get to sleep."

"It's a school night!"

"I read about this massacre of Spike's in 1983 in Wisconsin. Really gross stuff with field hockey sticks." Devlin and Spike enter the girls' locker room. The girls scream. Some try to run, but Elektra and Dru block the only exits. "A web site about it said he had an accomplice. I think that's Devlin. And the field hockey sticks – that fits with what he did to Vi. Only, worse. Anyway, the police had the whole place surrounded. Just like now."

"Except now there are Slayers," Buffy condescendingly responds.

"But it's the same basic template. I think there are lessons that apply."

"I have to go." Buffy hangs up and gets in the government car with Faith, who's nervous being so close to the authorities. The sirens wail as they head on their way. Again, odd for Faith. Things have certainly changed since the last time the two of them were in the back of a police vehicle.

"Buffy? Here," Devlin asks, incredulous.

"And someone else."

"Another Slayer. Four Slayers. Including Buffy." Devlin smiles. "Well. We must be very important. To fly all the way from Rome at a moment's notice."

"That's the problem, dumbass. We can't wait till night. We can't wait twenty minutes. We have to move NOW."

"You're more amazing than I ever imagined," Eamon says to Elektra with starry eyes. So beautiful. So powerful. Devlin checks the cameras again.

"Go for the sewers and we get surrounded. Only one other way out."

"The vents," Elektra asks.

"Please. This isn't a movie. Pack up you things, sis." Devlin packs up his computer and the rest of his stuff, then hands them to Eamon. "Your part is vital. You are our porter. Except most porters don't get five thousand dollar tips."

"This is gonna weigh me down."

"Don't worry. You're walking out the sewer."

"I thought you said the sewer was a trap?"

"For us. Not you."

"Very good." Robson says to Buffy. He gets off the phone and back on the radio. "All hold." He has twelve special ops in all, each with a stake and a taser, plus two Slayers as backup. It's all he can do to keep them in check. "Relax, Chelsea. Brianne. You've done well. They're right where we want them."

I will find you. No matter how far. I will find you," Eamon pledges.

"Cut the Natty Bumpo act and remember not to drop my computer. It's far more valuable to the cause of vampires than you could ever be. Unfortunately, I need you to survive for it to survive. Heaven help us if it falls into the wrong hands."

"You're really not good at pep talks," Leks tells her brother. "I believe in you, Eamon. I believe you're a great Celtic warrior. Prove me right. Plus, you want to survive and see me naked again, right?" Eamon smiles. Devlin groans.

Devlin had never seen this much blood before. Smeared on the walls. Flowing in trails on the floor. Lapping up against his sneakers. And it was his doing. Spike puts his arm around Dev's shoulders. "I''m proud of you, boy. You did some spot on work today. Showed real creativity. Real bloody creativity." He chuckles. Devlin weakly follows suit. This wasn't as satisfying as Spike had promised.

"It's gnarly out there," Elektra rushes in to report. "Cop cars everywhere."

"Coppers won't stop me," Spike says, swaggering towards the exit and leaving bloody footprints.

"You're just going to walk out that door," Devlin asks.

"Who's gonna stop me?"

"That's not what this is about. There's an easy way, and there's an artful way."

"Bollocks to art."

"Listen to the boy," Dru gently pleads. She picks up some blood on her finger and puts it in Spike's mouth. "He has dreams. Don't crush them."

Devlin and Elektra look at the window shade and take a moment to prepare.

"Remember our first time," she asks with a smile.

"Stakes weren't nearly this high."

"Let's make mummy proud."


	6. Blinded by the Light

1The two vampires cover their bodies with a blanket and cover the blanket with a white sheet to reflect the sun.

"Pull," Devlin says to Eamon, who pulls the cord to open the shades.

"Hey ho let's go," Elektra says. Devlin fires two bullets, shattering the glass. Dev and Leks leap through the shards before they even have the time to fall. The two agents look up in disbelief. The vampires land on two taxi cabs, crushing them. They then leap back up across the street. The agents fire their crossbows at the vampires' backs. (They were the only ones equipped with crossbows for just this eventuality.) Dev fires two more shots in a second story window, and the vampires leap on through the shards once again, shocking the office workers inside.

"What the bloody hell," Robson says when he hears the shots. "I told you hold, he adds, mistakenly thinking his agents are responsible."

The two agents on the twelfth floor burst into the empty room and rush towards what's left of the window. They look down at the damage. While the agents are distracted and have their backs turned to him, Eamon quietly sneaks out the room towards the stairs. Since the door's already open, they don't even hear him.

Once they scamper into the shadows, Dev and Leks try to throw off the blankets, though the arrows in their backs make this impossible. Dev points his two guns, causing everyone to scream. "Everybody stay calm," he yells. "We're not terrorists, we don't have a bomb, we pose no threat. Leave us alone and nobody gets hurt. Thank you. And sorry about the windows. Hope it doesn't come out of your paychecks." Elektra tugs her brother towards the stairs.

"Always looking for the attention. Meanwhile we got two Slayers on our tails."

"Move, move, move," Robson orders in an abrupt about-face. Before he even spoke, Chelsea and Brianne were racing into the street. They leaped up, swung once around on light poles, and hurled themselves into the building, further startling the workers, even though now that hardly seemed possible. The MI5 agents moved to secure sewer access. Eamon, loaded down with baggage, literally walks right past two of them as they rush to reposition themselves and cut off Dev and Leks. He makes an easy escape, just as Devlin had predicted.

Once in the basement, Devlin appears lost and is unable to find sewer access. But Elektra remains calm and rips up a metal grate, revealing an opening to the subterranean avenues below. As they leap down, they can hear the unmistakable sound of Slayers very rapidly coming down the stairs to catch them.

In the darkened sewers, Elektra can hear breathing from two locations. "No," Dev whispers, trying to remind her they are armed with debilitating tasers. Dev hears the faint hum of infrared goggles. The vampires, coming from warm hotel rooms, are about fifteen degrees hotter than the damp sewer, and therefore can be detected. Leks climbs on the ceiling and crawls upside-down away from the breathers. Dev stands still, his guns at his side. He spins the pistols around his fingers, turns his back to the agents and walks towards Elektra. The agents leap at the chance and rush towards taser range. Dev points the guns behind him and shoots the tasers out of their hands. He immediately spins and fires again, hitting each man in the eye. Leks falls from the ceiling and races into one of the pipes. Dev follows.

Chelsea leads the way for Brianne, both of them following the sounds of their prey. But shortly after entering the sub-basement, Chelsea trips over something and falls on her face into a puddle. Brianne looks and realizes it's a body Chelsea tripped over. She takes out her radio to tell Robson. "No time," Chelsea says after getting up. "Wut's done is done." They continue the chase. At the other end, Dev struggles to keep up with Leks.

"Just go," he orders. "I can take care of them myself." Elektra, thinking she knows what this means, smiles and jets off. Dev knows nothing can catch her. As for himself, he has other skills. Dev points his guns and fires four times. The Slayers hit the floor and hear the bullets ricochet off the metal and concrete. "You go no farther," he tells them.

"Bollocks," Brianne yells before rising to her feet. Devlin fires once. The bullet grazes the right side of her skull. She falls down again, unhurt but bloodied.

"Has Buffy told you what I've done to other Slayers' kneecaps? I could leave you here, crippled, for the common pond-scum bloodsuckers to feed off of you. That's not a very dignified way to go. Or, you can tell Paul Robson that you lost our trail, and continue the search anew once Buffy and Faith arrive. Now I'm going to turn around and leave. Anyone who follows learns what it sounds like it feels like to have bullet go through bone." Brianne flips Devlin the bird. He fires a shot between her two outstretched fingers and into her left shoulder. "My father would like you," he says with a grin before running away, leaving the Slayers feeling – for the first time since they got their powers – impotent and humiliated.

The problem with setting up a far-off meeting point away from the authorities is that, if you're fast like Elektra, you have to stand around, alone, waiting for everybody else to make it. After ten minutes, Eamon finally arrived. She grabs him and kisses him. He puts his hands to her face and eagerly kisses her back. "What took you so long," she asks.

"So long? I had to run halfway across town! Oh, bollocks. Why fight? I love you, Leks." He tosses down all the stuff he's carrying, pins her against the wall, and kisses her some more. "You are the most fooking incredible thing ever to happen to me," he adds, kissing her neck. "I'll do anything for you."

"Then leave."

"Wut! The three of us make a great team."

"My brother hates you."

"He needs me."

"In Liverpool. I need you there, too."

"Aren't you coming," he asks, wounded and surprised.

"There are other places I need to be. You can do it on your own. You and the other Islanders. For Britain, and Ireland, and all the stuff that's not attached to Europe."

"So this is goodbye?"

"Not if you kill me a Slayer." She runs her right hand through his hair, puts her left hand on his butt, and kisses him on the lips.

"Ah will. Ah will," he says before kissing her again. "Why are you wearing a cape?"

"What," she looks back and spins around. "Oh, it's just the blanket. Wait a second. What's holding it on? What's holding it on?"

"You've been shot."

"Perfect. My new jacket ruined." She reaches back for the arrow.

"Let me." He slowly pulls it out. Elektra feels the wound suddenly open, then start to close. She looks up at Eamon and kisses him. It's all very romantic, until he gets pistol-whipped fifteen seconds later.

"We have half the government and four Slayers combing this city for our bodies, and this is how you choose to spend your time?"

"I was caught in the moment. Besides, I had to do something while I waited for your slow ass."

"My shit! It's wet!." He pistol-whips Eamon's face again.

"Stop that," Leks orders.

"Hiding behind his woman. If it wasn't for the complete lack of talent, he really might be a part of this family."

"Oh Eamon has talents. Talents that run in our family."

"That's the least of our talents."

"Speak for yourself." Eamon pulls the arrow Devlin didn't even know he had in him out of his back.

"Oww!"

"Guess you both got hit."

"And close to my heart. That's not nice. Glad I killed their two friends." Devlin points a gun to Eamon's forehead.

"That's a nice thank you," he jokes.

"Get thee to Liverpool. Now. Before the Slayers find you and torture you for our whereabouts. Because they will. Mercilessly. I hear flaying's part of their repertoire. You know a vampire can live without his skin. It's just not very pleasant."

"I will find you," Eamon says one last time to Elektra.

"Make me proud."

"I hear after they take off your skin they marinate your insides in holy water." Eamon runs away. "I suppose he's a decent useful idiot."

"You know he can still hear you."

"Does it look like I care," he asks as he picks up his luggage and Elektra takes hers.

"You could use a servant. So could I. Remember when mummy made us some?"

"Yes, I remember. That was around the time I disappointed father. Why time you say? I don't know, there were so many!"

"Save it for the shrink. I can't believe we're stuck in the sewers. This sucks!"

"If you wouldn't have met Eamon, he'd never have led them to our hotel, and we'd be safely asleep in our beds."

"Don't blame him."

"Why not?"

"I thought you liked taking the fight to the enemy and outwitting them? So Eamon did you a favor, gave you another chance to shine."

"I didn't want to shine in London. I wanted to do my dirty work when no one was looking. Now everyone's looking. They have cameras on the streets, you know. They'll find us if we go above-ground. Which, knowing you, you will."

"Don't we need publicity?"

"We already have enough."

"There's never enough! We were on the fucking tele! What other vampires can claim that?"

Buffy and Faith arrive, surprised by the extent of the police presence. They're in for an even worse surprise. "What do you mean they're gone," Buffy yells at Evsey. "I thought you said you'd hold tight?"

"We did. They didn't."

"How the hell did they escape? I thought you had everything - "

"We did. But you can't protect against everything." Faith looks up at the broken hotel window, then at the crushed cab, then at the shattered office window across the street.

"Yes you can."

"B, ya gotta see this." Faith leads the livid Slayer away. Robson talks to the MI5 leader, consoling him about the loss of two men.

"This isn't a time for condolence. It's a time for revenge. We're going to get those buggers," he vows to the Watcher, who catches sight of Chelsea and Brianne. He rushes over, and immediately notices Brianne holding her bloody arm. He talks to then and acts understanding as to why they let the two most dangerous vampires in London get away.

"Like a fucking grasshopper," Faith says to Buffy about the escape.

"What about the sun?"

"I dunno. They found a way." Faith knows a thing or two about escaping from the authorities, and deep, deep down feels a tinge of respect for Dev and Leks, which only leads to revulsion at the thought that she could ever respect Wood's killers. Faith notices Robson with two girls who must be the Slayers. She sees blood in Brianne's hair, which reminds her of when Dev cut her head many years ago. Buffy hustles over to meet them.

"Hi. You've probably heard of me."

"You're Buffy," Chelsea asks.

"Oh," Brianne adds with chilling indifference. They didn't seem very wowed. "Why are you here?"

"To help you kill them."

"We need help," Chelsea asks, looking suspiciously at her Watcher.

"Well, see, the thing is, they've killed Slayers a lot less green than you," Faith casually explains. "Plus, we really hate their vampire guts and wanna see 'em really dead real soon."

"There were others, before them," Evsey explains in his basement hideout. "By the time these two took up the stakes, there were hardly any of us left. Now, I don't know. I keep wondering if I'm the last one." He is in his early thirties, with stubble and a ratty sweater, looking like a grunge version of a younger Rupert Giles. "They took my home. Robbed me of my books."

"What about Mary," Devlin asks of the nineteen year-old student for sired him.

"She fought. I ran. Now she's gone."

"Too bad. I was looking forward to nailing her." Elektra's shocked at Dev's rudeness, especially since this is a bit much even for him. Evsey can tell.

"It's all right," he assures her. "Mary was flagrant in her many infidelities. I suppose I was too forgiving. Then again, I couldn't stand to be alone. Now I have no choice."

"Yes you do," Devlin disagrees. "Go to Liverpool. Join the others in their last stand. Win Britain back from them!"

Evsey chuckles. "You know me, Devlin. Am I a fighter?"

"You'll have to be. Inside every vampire is a fighter. The time has come to let yours burst out. Either that, or you'll perish. Now is the time for all to stand up."

"Your speeches sound like something from the Plutarch I've been reading."

"In the Greek?"

"Translation," he says with a sigh. Devlin shakes his head in disappointment. "It was all I could find to steal from the store."

"Curious chap," Dev says to his sister. "Other vampires take shoppers. He takes the merchandise."

"Sounds like you," she says, boomeranging his gentle jab at Evsey.

"Very well. Quite true."

"Don't you need me for research," Evsey asks.

"After you fight."

"I don't see the point. Why risk it?"

"For your own good, Evsey. I want you to see what this struggle is about. You have to stand and face the enemy. I'm not saying you have to defeat the enemy. Most soldiers never kill in battle. Even the ones who win. But they're there, on the field, under fire. And that's what makes them men."

"Plus, there's strength in numbers," Elektra adds as pragmatic counterpoint. "Or you can just sit here and wait for Buffy to come and cut your dick off."

"She's here?" Evsey's eyes light up with fear. He imagines Buffy as some twenty foot-tall Ishtar-like all-destroying evil goddess.

"Thanks to us. Sorry about that," Devlin responds.

Buffy sends the demon on his belly along the top of the bar. The other demons try to flee, but Faith blocks the door and punches one out. Buffy had convinced Robson to give them the names and addresses of all possible vampire hideouts in the city. Meanwhile, Brianne and Chelsea slept while Robson directed the MI5 and stood ready to tell Buffy if they found anything. Interestingly enough, during this day, Angel and Spike land in London, though their minds are on helping Fred. It would be the last time all the major players would be in the same place at the same time.

"Where are they," Buffy asks.

"All I know is what I see on TV, darling." Buffy slams his head into the bar.

"Don't call me that."

"Why? Heard you've been called better." She punches him to the ground. "What? No love for us full-bloods?" Buffy kicks his teeth in.

"I think she's gonna kill ya and your friends are gonna watch," Faith warns. "Unless you start talking."

"He doesn't know bollocks," the bartender says. "Now let them bloody go and I'll tell you what you bloody need."

"I'm supposed to trust you," Buffy asks. "I got a bad record with your type." Faith takes a drag on her cigarette and walks over. "Why aren't you at the door?"

"Demons know squat. You think they wanna hang around the vamps and get themselves killed?"

"No, we don't. We keep to ourselves and are very law-abiding. Good day," one harmless-looking demon says before skedaddling.

"Now B here, ya know, unlike me, she hasn't sworn off killing people. Especially a low-life like you whose death we could easily blame on a couple of outlaw American vamps."

"Yeah. Wut makes you think they won't come after me."

"You think they're gonna pop their heads up when the likes of us are out looking for them," Buffy asks. He looks wearily at the two Slayers.

"Okay, I know some places." Buffy and Faith leave with their first list of vampire hideouts.

"Since when did I become the good cop," Faith wonders, noticing how Devlin has started to change Buffy.

"So what's the big strategy, bro," Elektra acts as she staggers, exhausted, down another interminable tunnel.

"We get as far away from other vampires as possible and wait for night. You sleep, I'll watch." She lies down, using one of her bags as a pillow.

"You'll watch me sleep? Isn't that a little bit creepy," she jokes.

"No, what's creepy is coming home and finding your sister getting - "

"Shut up."

"By a complete loser."

"He's survived four Slayers."

"Because he's such a loser they don't bother to kill him. Probably missed the junkie hideouts."

"This isn't about drugs."

"Yes it is. It's bad enough you're still getting high when we have Slayers watching our every move. It's another thing to get mixed up with an addict."

"You're a homophobe."

"I'm what?"

"Eamon also does guys, and that bothers you."

"It doesn't bother you?"

"I'm tolerant."

"He used to come on to dad. You know that, right?"

"Eamon told me. He said daddy was uptight, but the old queens had stories about him and Angelus and about Angelus and – "

"It was a different time! Experimenting for a guy back then was like experimenting for a girl nowadays."

"I don't experiment. Not for lack of opportunity."

"Yes, that's all fine and dandy, and completely irrelevant to the point that you're sleeping with a smack whore!"

"Since when was it any of your business who I slept with? All of a sudden you're turning into dad."

"No, because dad would be jealous, and I am not jealous."

"Okay, there's something we agree on," she quickly concedes. "I know what this is about. You need to get laid. You miss that damn Slayer pet."

"Don't mention Debbie."

"I wonder what she's up to now? Who she's doing."

Connor sits in the courtyard reading a book. He saw Debbie go in to the dorm two hours ago, and he's staking it out. Finally, she emerges. He walks over. "What a coincidence. Seeing you here."

"Hi Connor," Debbie says wearily.

"Your hair. It's shorter. And darker. I like it," he lies. Devlin loved her long curls, so Debbie cut them off.

"Thanks."

"You wanna get coffee sometime?"

"Look - "

"I'm sorry. Is it Devlin?"

"We broke up." Suddenly, Connor must fight the urge to leap up in the air and yell out for joy.

"I'm sorry. I mean, no I'm not. I mean, I'm sorry if you're sorry and, if you're hurting, in which case, I'm sorry because of that."

"Thanks. I guess."

"So, d'ya wanna get coffee sometime?"

"Connor, there's some things you don't know about me. I'm not what I seem."

"Who is?"

"I don't go here. I have a friend who goes here, and I sometimes visit her and, strangely, always see you around. I go to Laguna Hills High School. I'm a junior."

"That's okay. Not like it's something to be ashamed of. I'm only a freshman. And, I just wanted to ask you out for coffee."

"Maybe some other time."

"Yeah. Sure. Maybe."

"Bye." She walks away, but looks back. Connor's never felt so exhilarated. The girl of his dreams was free!

Buffy and Faith hit all the vampire lairs they heard about in all the demon bars, and only found two vampires so pathetic they almost weren't worth staking after the fruitless torture sessions. They found Evsey's and Eamon's hideouts, and noted the signs of abrupt flight. By nightfall, Faith was the less discouraged. "You're used to Sunnydale, and London is, like, a hundred times bigger than Sunnydale. How can you expect to find two vampires in one day in a place this big?"

"We'll find them."

"Or they'll find us."

"I think we should hit some of the outlying neighborhoods, see if they've seen anyone who doesn't belong. Robson doesn't think so. He'll thinks they'll try to blend downtown."

"B, you're not listening to me. This girl vamp is a real party girl."

"And a total slut bag. Like you used to be. No offense."

"None taken. We think alike. Probably go to the same places." At then it finally hits Buffy.

While Faith might be right about Elektra, Buffy was definitely on to something with Devlin. He was out in the East End, lurking in the shadows of an Arab and Pakistani neighborhood. A man was escorting two women with their faces and heads covered. Suddenly, he disappears. The women notice. Then one of them disappears. Devlin approaches the one remaining women, who by now is terrified. He tries to speak to her in Arabic, but she doesn't understand. Pity, he thinks. Dev was trying to note to irony that a man had been drawn to her precisely because she was covered. Oh well. Dev rips off the veil, covers her mouth so she doesn't scream, and bites, having his first meal since Cleveland.

It took four clubs, but they finally found Elektra dancing with two guys, just like the old Faith would have been doing. Faith locks on from the front, slowly dancing her way towards the vampire. Their eyes meet. Elektra departs from the boys and gyrates her way towards Faith. When she gets within six feet, Leks reaches her right arm out as if to touch Faith, who eyes the hand wearily. "Such a tease," Leks yells out. Suddenly she does a double backflip away from Faith. It turned out that all the while Buffy was sneaking up behind the vampire and had thrust her arm forward to stake her at the moment Elektra leaped into the air. In fact, she had waited to literally the last instant to make her mistake. Leks lands amidst gasps at her athleticism and pushes her way towards the exit, with the two Slayers close behind. Once she's outside, Elektra turns on the jets and quickly outdistances the Slayers. Faith decides to give up two blocks before Buffy. While she's catching her breath, Faith hears someone behind her.

"I thought you and me could have a go, mano a mano. Something epic. But you had to wuss out and bring the Queen Bee along." Elektra was not only quick enough to outrun both Slayers, but she had time to double back. "What's the matter? Am I too much vampire for you?"

"Thought you'd have company."

"Well I don't. So why don't you send the Queen after my bro and you and me can have a little throw-down?" Of course her brother was the one both Buffy and Faith really wanted, though they wish not to reveal that fact and give Devlin something to brag about.

"What can I say? We're a team, yo."

"Usually I don't team up with people who tried to kill me, but that's just me." While Faith wonders how she knew that, Elektra spins and leaps in the air towards Buffy, who's behind her once again. Buffy jumps too, and they meet fifteen feet off the ground. Leks tries a right kick which Buffy blocks with both arms. But the force of the blow knocks Buffy off-center, and she lands on her ass while Leks lands on her feet. The vampire then takes out one of her throwing stars and turns around, lashing out at Faith who attacked from behind. The blades on the star cut deep into Faith's right forearm. As she grabs the wound, and as Buffy stands up, Elektra takes off. Both Slayers chase, with Buffy in the lead. Elektra toys with her, holding back so Buffy can stay close. After thirty seconds of this she goes into overdrive and vanishes.

"Bitch cut me," Faith says as she catches up to Buffy, grabbing her arm.

"She's good at fleeing," Buffy deprecatingly remarks as she catches her breath. "I'll give her that."

After killing the two women, Devlin quietly climbed up the back of Robson's town house, spending the last several hours of the night patiently lying in wait on the roof, which the Watcher had failed to secure with a guard on account of not wanting to alarm the neighbors. Besides, vampires weren't like Bringers. They couldn't harm you in your own home. As the sun came out, Devlin covered himself with a cape and listened. At half past seven, Robson emerged with two MI 5 agents acting as guards. Buffy and Faith were catching a few winks after a night of fruitless searching for Devlin that did yield three more slayed vampires, some of the city's last. The two native Slayers did their own ineffectual sleuthing, hitting the now-deserted places where vampires once fed. They are getting some rest with Buffy and Faith in an apartment above Robson's office, a mile from his own apartment. Though without Slayers, he feels safe. He has two trained warriors at his side, and, after all, it is a sunny morning. Besides, just to be secure, he was taking a car to work.

Robson steps out onto the porch, and is met by the two agents. Devlin hears the car pull up, the door open and close, and the small talk between the three men. He knows this is his moment. His hands covered with black gloves, he dons a white Greek comedy mask to protect his face, puts the cape over his shoulders and tosses his umbrella up in the air. He then takes hold of his two pistols, now equipped with silencers, and leaps off the roof. While doing a midair flip, he shoots both agents in the head. Robson can't hear the muffled guns over the din of traffic, and first notices something is wrong when he hears both men fall to the ground. The Watcher then hears something land behind him. After having put away the guns before he landed, Devlin reaches his right arm up, catches his falling umbrella, deploys the six inch bayonet, and thrusts, hitting Robson square in the forehead as he turns around. The Watcher never saw what killed him. After he falls, Devlin points the umbrella to the right and shoots the stunned driver in the left temple, the bullet first shattering the glass. This very audible shot attracts what attention Devlin had not already drawn by killing three men on a London street in broad daylight. He knows he must flee fast, and not just because he could burn up. Dev takes the first left and pulls off the first sewer grate, disappearing underground. He leaves the gloves and mask behind as souveniers and makes his way as fast as possible to his sister.

Twenty minutes later, local police wake the four Slayers up by ringing the. They hear the horrible news. Four dead, including Paul Robson. Chelsea and Brianna are stunned. Faith and Buffy are outraged.

"It's daytime. They can't go far," Buffy assures Faith, herself, and the two rookie Slayers. We'll catch him. And the little whore too."

NEXT: How they escape the country and hook up with Jeta.


	7. Jeta joins the fight, Darth Vader style

1With Buffy and Faith on their tail, Devlin and Elektra flee into the arms of an old friend.

"I think you'll be happy to know I didn't kill anyone last night," his sister tells him when they meet underneath the train station. "Gawd, I can't believe I actually said that to another vampire. Is he dead?"

"Yes."

"Good. Now we can go somewhere to eat. Like Marseille."

"Why Marseille?"

"Why not? It's close to Rome, but not too close. And on the water if we want to catch a ship."

"Marseille it is."

"Now what's the present you got for me?"

Dev takes off his cape and the backpack underneath. "An invisibility cloak."

"First of all, capes are so two centuries ago. And invisibility cloaks are geeky Harry Potter-esque. Unless they're real. Are they real?"

"Better."

In the backpack was the attire of the two women Devlin had killed the night before. With it, the two vampires could be covered head-to-toe, with only a narrow slit for their eyes exposing them. This protected them from the sun, but more important, it hid the identity of London's two most wanted and most recognizable fugitives. Hopefully, not too many people would look closely enough to see that one of the "Arab women" had blue eyes. He made Elektra remove her eye makeup as well as her nail polish, which helped. Devlin was short and thin, so he could pull it off, looking under the covering like a moderately tall woman. Besides, it was rude to stare, especially at women in foreign costume. One did not want to seem bigoted or ignorant. Devlin schooled Elektra in the proper accent, and even taught her a few Arabic phrases to throw around in order to seem more authentic. No detail was ever too minor for his attention. She bought two tickets in broken English, looking down the whole time so the teller didn't get a good look at her eyes, and they boarded the train without incident. Fortunately, much of the ride to Paris was underground. When above ground, they looked away from the window, so the sun struck the covered backs and sides of their heads. Devlin, ever the protector, took the window seat.

When they arrived and detrained in Paris, Devlin realized there was one detail he had been forced to overlook: their luggage. It was too western, like that of some kids backpacking through Europe, as they sort of were. But he trusted that no one would risk ripping the veil off a Muslim woman and reveal their identities. This proved to be the case. The only strange looks they received in the station on their way to the train to Marseille were from actual Arabs who quickly realized these two were not their own kind. But they chose not to act upon their suspicions.

Even though Buffy barely knew Paul Robson, his death hit her personally. It happened on her watch, and was an insult to her prestige. She had come to London to eliminate Devlin. But not only had he escaped her, he leveled a devastating counterattack. She could tell that Brianne and Chelsea were wavering without their Watcher. They didn't seem disposed to taking orders from their Commander-in-Chief since they did not know, and had never fought alongside, her. Now, with London's vampires having either fled or been slain, they would not have that chance. Buffy and Faith had to go where Devlin went. But to do that, they had to find out.

One of the thousands of surveillance cameras in the city had caught Devlin's quadruple murder, but that was not the video Buffy wanted to see. She knew he had done what he came to London to do, and would now flee, especially since she was there. Cars were problematic: blocking the sunlight would attract attention, and the police could always chase them down before dark. Planes were a better option, but getting to the airport posed the car problem, and they'd probably be recognized and caught on the tarmac by alert police. That left trains. But this created two questions for Buffy: how would they disguise their identities, and how would they cover up from the sun? It then occurred to her how they could do both.

"Birkenstock. No. Wait. Sorry. Burkha."

"Wouldn't be flattering on you, love," the Scotland Yard detective jokes as he checks surveillance footage.

"They're wearing one. They have to be. To protect from the sun."

"Or they're hiding in the sewers," Faith offers.

"No. It's too risky. They do their business and get out of town. He knows we expect him to hide. That's why he won't. Check for covered women at the train station," she orders the detective, who she has no actual authority over.

"Some freight train," Faith asks, thinking of her own escapes. "What about a boat?"

"Too much of a chance of getting caught."

"What about a plane, B?"

"They'd stand out. Since when do women in burkhas take private jets?"

"So a freight train?"

"No. If I were them I'd want off the island."

"I'm with your partner," the detective says. "Hop a train to another town with an airstrip. Leave at night. They can go in any direction."

"Too easy."

"He's a vamp who shoots people with guns," Faith reminds Buffy. "He likes it easy."

"This is about showing me up. He's gonna leave the island. Today. Check the funnel trains."

"You mean Chunnel," the detective asks.

"Yeah. Whatever. Check the cameras at the train station. Look for two people in burkhas."

"Muslim women here don't wear burkhas," another detective with experience in the immigrant neighborhoods points out.

"Then they'll stand out even more."

"They do wear the hijab. And if they're wearing it, that means they wouldn't travel outside the country without a male escort."

"There you go," Buffy states triumphantly. "You'll know it's them." Buffy phone rings. She answers it. "Giles? Omigod. Omigod. I forgot to call you. I have really bad news. I'm so sorry."

"MI 5 already called."

"I'm so sorry."

"It's not your fault."

"Of course it is."

"You can't let it worry you now. You must soldier on."

"And you?" Giles sighs.

"Losing Paul is like losing my right arm."

"I'm so sorry. I should have been there to protect him."

"From what they told me, there probably wasn't much even you could have done."

"I would have stopped it. I would have killed him."

"Or you could have been the one with a bullet in your brain."

"That's a risk I need to take."

"How are Chelsea and Brianne?"

"They're holding up. But I'm worried." Buffy sees Faith talking with them, which both reassures and unnerves her.

The night before, Britain's two senior Slayers, Bonnie and Victoria, battled three vampires who were holed up in Edinburgh Castle. Pitt, a medium-sized vampire with a shock of red hair, decided it was a cool place to make a last stand with his two closest companions. They had fought the Slayers all the way up the tower, enjoying the advantage of the higher ground. Both Slayers were bruised and exhausted. Pitt could take one. And a double-team should do in the other. Pitt stands on the roof of the tower, kicking at Bonnie as she tries to climb the stairs. Bonnie grabs his right leg and pulls him to the ground. She then storms past him and attacks the other male vampire, driving his back into the parapet. A female vampire grabs her from behind and pulls her away, but Bonnie flips her.

Down below, Victoria lands left and right punches to Pitt's face. But he blocks a left cross, knocks her back with a left hook, and rejoins his companions on the roof. Victoria follows right behind. This is just as Pitt wanted. He can kill a Slayer by throwing her off the roof more than one hundred feet to the ground, but the same fall wouldn't kill him. Plus the Slayers were more fatigued. He had wanted to fight the other one, who he can tell is stronger, but Victoria would do for know. They exchange punches, and Victoria blocks his right kick. Pitt circles so he can watch his companions in action over the Slayer's shoulder. Victoria takes advantage of his distraction and knocks Pitt down with a right roundhouse kick.

"Not bad, lass. Shame ah hafta kill ya." He lets her get close then trips her up before bounding to his feet. She repays this by punching him in the groin. "Dirty pool," he groans as he doubles over and she lands a left punch to his back and a right uppercut to his chin. She connects with a straight right kick, a left roundhouse, and goes for the stake. "Naught ye-et," he taunts as he grabs her right arm, spins her around and puts her back against a crenelation. She lands a left hook, but he holds on and forces her two feet to the right, in a space between crenelations where he can push her off. As they struggle, he hears a woman's scream, and knows one of his companions is no more. This motivates him to push harder.

"Aren't you blokes supposed to bite," Victoria taunts, since he's going for an easy kill. Pitt knows this, but doesn't care.

"I'll bite your friend. You I'm no so crazy about. Ya don't haf the look," he insults. She grunts as she finally pushes his away. Just then, he hears another scream. "Ah no! Not the boy!" He spins to avoid Bonnie's stake in the back and pushes her into Victoria. Then he climbs onto the parapet opposite the two Slayers. "Looks like I'll need new friends. Be seeing you." Bonnie rushes over, but he jumps before she can grab him. He laughs all the way until his hard, ungainly landing. Then limps away. Bonnie and Victoria rush down the stairs as fast as their exhausted legs can take them, but know they won't catch him tonight.

Dev and Leks arrive in Marseille a few hours after sunset. Once they are in the clear, they take off their costumes in an empty alley. "Gawd, I don't know how they do it," Leks exclaims. "I was suffocating under that thing. And I don't even breathe," she jokes.

"Wait until you try a burkha. It's disorienting."

"What is it with you and Muslim cross-dressing?"

"You do what you have to ta survive."

"Yeah. Sure. That's it," she kids. "So now what? Who do we eat?"

"First we check in to a nice hotel. I'm hoping the all-points bulletin didn't reach across the Channel. Then we wait."

"Don't like waiting. 'Specially now."

"We kill. So they know where we are."

"That I like. Except for the part about her knowing where we are. What's up with that?"

"We're going to draw them into a trap. First, let me call Interpol. Ah, the irony of being a fugitive murderer chased by another fugitive murderer." Elektra realizes what he has planned.

"The police? Isn't that a cop-out? 'Scuse the pun. And way hypocritical?"

"He stole these tactics from me," Dev angrily replies, surprising his sister. "That's why he had to die."

"That, and he was a Watcher."

"The closest Watcher to the Lead Watcher."

"The Vice-Watcher."

"Yes."

"So you didn't kill him just 'cause he stole your lame tactics."

"No. But it made me enjoy it even more. And they're not lame. They're clever."

"Shooting people and ratting them out isn't clever."

"Yes it is. Otherwise more vampires would do it."

"They don't do it cause it's wack."

"But it works."

"And yet you won't use your guns to kill Slayers."

"Because that's dishonorable."

"Exactly! It may be less dishonorable to shoot a non-Slayer, but it's still dishonorable. Unless they're a soldier."

"Or a cop."

"Cops can be killed easy without guns."

"Not in the daytime. And aren't your stars also 'wack' and cheating?"

"They're a martial arts weapon. Guns aren't."

"They're both missile weapons. They kill at a distance. It's the same basic idea."

"The stars are like the crossbow. It's an equalizer. Guns are too crazy mad powerful. Plus, guns don't impress anyone."

Romania, 1988. Spike and Dru have reunited with their two children for a European tour. Currently, they're scouring the numerous orphanages of this country for the delicious children especially beloved by Drusilla. Devlin, as usual, is listless, much to the consternation of his usually supportive mother.

"I'm sorry. I just don't see the point in feeding." Spike, Dru and Leks stare at Dev in shock. "I mean, in JUST feeding."

"I told you boy, sooner or later someone will attack and we'll get to fight."

"I understand the provocation argument. But it hasn't worked. And we've been here two weeks!"

"People will bloody notice."

"Maybe they have, but they're too weak," Elektra proposes.

"Communism does cut down on initiative," Devlin pontificates. "But what about the soldiers?"

"Maybe no one cares about orphans," Leks continues. "That's why they're orphans, right? Cause no one cared about them to begin with?"

"Perhaps the government's control is weakening," Devlin offers. "Things have been in flux in Eastern Europe since Gorbachev said he wouldn't defend them."

"Stop that," Spike orders. "We're vampires. We don't have to care about bloody politics. It doesn't effect us."

"Silence," Dru commands. "A bird's watching." The other three listen, and can hear chirping. Elektra laughs. It really is just a bird.

"So what," she asks.

"Quiet."

"I don't get it." As oblique as Dru was, her daughter could usually understand her. Dru slaps the impudent girl on the wrist. Leks pouts. Spike comforts her. Dev walks forward and starts whistling back to the bird.

"Here birdie birdie. Here birdie birdie," he jokes. Dev hears the flapping of wings and sees the bird descend in front of him and turn into a beautiful young, dark woman. "Birdie," he adds, his jaw dropped. Spike sees her and rushes forward.

"Yetta!" Dru appears uncomfortable. Dev just stares. Jeta completely ignores him. Spike picks up the happy young woman and hugs her. "It's been fifty bloody years!" Actually, forty four.

"I don't like the coat," she offers, upsetting Spike.

"Why not?"

"You know why. But I love the hair." Spike smiles and picks her up again. When he puts her down, Devlin walks over.

"Hi. I'm Devlin. Spike's son." He holds out his right hand. She turns away and doesn't bother to shake it.

"Oh." She mutters something in German, then catches sight of Elektra, who is trying in vain to find out from Drusilla who this new woman is. She smiles.

"What do you mean I'm not worthy," Dev demands to know as Jeta rushes past him. Even with her bad late-80s hair and clothes, Leks is still stunning. Jeta doesn't usually go for women her own age, but she can instantly tell that Elektra (unlike Devlin) is special.

"You have great power."

"Wait. You're talking to me?" Leks laughs. She assumed Jeta meant Drusilla. "Yeah, right. I'm just a kid."

"Don't kid yourself," Jeta puns. Elektra giggles again.

"You're funny." Up front, Spike breaks into the orphanage, but is only able to kill the adults before Devlin forcible restrains him, angering his father, who reluctantly agrees to wait for the others. Jeta stares into Elektra's big, bright blue eyes with her big, dark brown ones. "Whoa." Leks shudders. "Are you hypnotizing me?" She can already tell Jeta is unlike any vampire she's ever met. Then again, watching her turn from a bird into a person already confirmed that fact.

"I want your power. You want my power. Let's merge."

"Umm, ughh, is that like, umm, code for – "

"I know what's going on," Devlin interrupts. "You're a Gypsy. Or, Romani, as you call yourselves today."

"Sinti," Jeta corrects him.

"And those babies and kids in there are also Gypsies. I mean, Roma. Though they're not Sinti, since the Sinti only lived in Germany," he astutely observes, still not impressing Jeta. Spike laughs at both his son's erudition and Jeta's pretensions.

"You're protecting the babies – from your own kind. What do you have, a soul?" Spike instantly stops laughing. "Please tell me you don't have a bloody soul."

"Don't need a soul."

"Oh thank god," he sighs with relief.

"But those children are also your own kind," Devlin points out, understanding the dual loyalties Spike cannot. After all, he doesn't make it his mission to protect Englishmen. "That's very fascinating. Maybe we could talk about – "

"So how do you know my dad," Elektra asks. Jeta kept staring at her the whole time Devlin was talking.

"I used to be his. Are you his?"

"Actually I'm, well, mummy fed me."

"You have her power."

"Wait. You mean do we – ? Oh. Sometimes. When mummy allows it. Did you and my dad – ?"

"You're the Dark Angel. The _Schwarzengel_. The tormenter of the German people."

"You're young. Less than twenty years," Jeta says to Leks, still ignoring Dev.

"You were made at the death camps, under the watchful eye of Mengele," Dev says in German in increasing desperation. Jeta doesn't bother to correct him. Though deadlier than the smaller death camps, Auschwitz was technically a concentration camp. And while Joseph Mengele allowed Ivan to have Jeta (there were plenty of other Gypsies to experiment on), he assumed the vampire was going to eat her, like he did nearly all of the other young women he was given. ("Why waste the gas," the sadistic doctor joked.) Devlin was simply repeating the mythology that had already sprouted up about the still-young vampire. He spots the tattooed numbers on her slender-yet-muscular arms, which reminded him in their beauty of his beloved mother's.

"I'm seventeen," Leks responds to Jeta's query. "But twelve in vampire years. How old are you? Who's your sire?" Coming from a good family, Elektra was very conscious of blood lines and lineage. It was the one part of vampire history she cared about more than her brother.

"Age matters not for you," Jeta replies cryptically, sounding a bit like Dru.

"So, do you, umm, also know my mom?"

"We've met," Jeta says with a smirk. Drusilla snarls. She was hoping never to see Jeta again, and is disappointed at the attention her children are lavishing upon the bisexual Gypsy. Elektra is acting worrisomely naive in her opinion. Devlin says in German that it is ironic how Jeta was renowned for killing German children yet is protecting Romani children, yet Jeta still doesn't so much as look in his direction.

"So if the kiddie farm is off-limits, why don't we go somewhere else to eat," the hungry Spike proposes.

"So where do we go to eat around here," Elektra asks the two male and one female vampire they meet in Marseilles.

"The hospital is guarded," one of the men, the only one of the three to speak English, replies.

"You eat at hospitals," Elektra scornfully asks, knowing how scavenger-like and therefore lowly such behavior is.

"They have to be careful with Slayers around," Devlin points out. "How many Slayers," he asks in broken French.

"One," the six foot-tall beauty answers in her native tongue.

"You see her," Dev asks back. "I kill two Slayers," he adds, trying to impress her with his prowess.

"I know," she replies with a coquettish glance. His cold heart melts.

"There are others who kill us," the man who speaks English points out.

"Local gangs," Devlin asks.

"Oui."

"I say we fight 'em all," Elektra brashly proposes. "Are there other vampires around here?"

"Not many."

"Any outsiders?"

"Perhaps." Elektra smiles.

"Is there something you're not telling me," Devlin asks his sister.

"There's lotsa things I don't tell ya," she replies.

"About Marseille. Or Massilia as the ancient Greeks who founded the town called it."

"Let's go do something big. Where can we go do something big?"

"There's the beach," the English-speaking male vampire proposes. The other male shakes his head and vehemently objects in French.

"Why you with these guys," Devlin asks the woman in French.

"Safety." She replies.

"Safety just?"

"Oui." He grins.

"Here I am, hiding with my birds in a bloody mine shaft because Devlin needs to attention of the Red Army."

"You once were him," Drusilla curtly points out to Spike, who punches Devlin to the ground.

"What do you have to say for yourself, boy?"

"I thought killing twenty would get their attention. I was wrong. So I killed forty." Spike punches Dev again for his Spike-like impudence.

"With guns! And grenades! What's wrong with you boy? You're my flesh and blood, but do you act like it? No!"

"I have a feud with Soviets. It's a big-time thing. To them I'm famous."

"Well to our kind it's a no-time thing. No one cares about bloody Afghanistan. It's time you woke up from that dream."

"It's not a dream. They hunted me with their best. And I beat them."

"With guns!"

"They had helicopter gunships."

"Why are you going to grow up and take on your family responsibilities? When are you going to stop playing soldier and start playing vampire?"

"I thought I could do both." Spike hits him again.

"This is just like 'The Lost Boys'," Elektra whispers as they watch a group of young people party round a campfire. Leks always thought that the Keifer Sutherland character in that movie was based on Spike. "Everyone else gets one, and I take two. Deal?" The French vampires are happy that they don't have to share a single corpse. And Devlin's never been greedy. So the question's largely rhetorical. "Good. Happy hunting."

The five of them go bumpy and walk towards their intended victims. Elektra, usually astute about such matters, let her hunger blind her to the fact that it was suspicious the six people around the fire were all muscular men with their heads shaved. Devlin was optimistically thinking ahead to his conquest of the Frenchwoman, and therefore also missed the clues. The two male French vampires were too eager to impress the hot American girl who came to their town. Of the five, only the Frenchwoman suspected a trap, but she assumed Devlin knew this and believed the five of them could easily take six humans. The vampire hunters usually didn't travel in posses larger than that. Elektra taps a man on the shoulder.

"Bonjour amigo." He responds by picking up an ax and swinging for her neck. She ducks and kicks him in the chest, knocking the man towards the flames before he is caught and saved by one of his comrades. "Fuck no!" She hears the whir of a crossbow bolt from towards the sea, and grabs it out of the air. A crossbow from the right hits the French vampire who spoke English. "You bastards." Eight more youths descend of them and the vampires are surrounded by overwhelming numbers.

"Oh my God," Devlin says in shock. "You're Arab. They're skinheads. You're working together. Are we really that formidable? I mean, this is like, wow, you must REALLY hate us." He decides to switch to Arabic. "You know he thinks you're a monkey," he says to an Arab man holding a novel weapon: a cricket bat shaved down to a wooden point with steel "teeth" along both sides stick two inches out to tenderize vampire fresh or sever a spinal cord.

"Now might be time for one of your wack weapons," Elektra whispers.

"Patience, sis. You afraid of a fight?"

"Never. But there's only one cute boy left, and I don't want him to die."

"Yeah. I feel the same way about the girl." He switches again to Arabic and raises his voice so the attackers can hear. "Say, when are you going to actually try to kill us?"

The Arabs let out an "Allahu akbar" and charge. The skinheads follow suit. Normally, they turn their weapons on each other. But a recent surge in vampires coming from Paris, where a pair of Slayers are stationed, forced them to briefly put aside vast animosities and fight a common foe.

"I wonder if Jean-Marie Le Pen knows about this," he quips before grabbing the wrists of a machete-wielding Arab and kicking him in the ribs, breaking one. He takes the sword away and beheads the brave fighter, then spins to confront a skinhead with a meat cleaver. He blocks the cleaver with his machete, then slices his abdomen and disembowels him. He knocks another attacker back with a kick to the head and slides down in the sand to trip another up. Meanwhile, two Arabs grab hold of the French male vampire and throw him into the fire. He escapes and tries to reach the water, but not in time.

Elektra leaped out of the shrinking circle of attackers and gave herself some space to use her special weapons. The six skinheads pursue as a team. Elektra hits one in the neck and one in the eye with her stars, and a third embeds itself in a man's forearm. She pulls out another star and prepares to fight. Leks knocks the first man to reach her down with a back flip kick, hammers the second with a leaping roundhouse kick, then ducks the third's sword swing and carves a bloody cross on his chest with the points of the star in her right hand. "What can I say? I'm a vampire with a sense of humor. Does this mean you'll, like, repel me?" The first attacker tries to stab her in the back with his sharpened ax handle, but she spins, grabs him and flips him to the ground with astonishing quickness. The second attacker throws a hatchet at her face. She ducks, and it merely nicks the top of her head. "Hey. Hey," she adds. The ducking allowed her the see that this man had also cut her right calf when she previously kicked him. "My pants!" She leaps over two attackers and pounces on the culprit, ripping open his throat before he can react. She turns round and looks at the other two men with blood dripping down her chin.

Surrounded by five Arabs (the two who incinerated to male French vampire have replaced the two Devlin killed with the sword he's now tossed to the female vampire, who battles the lead Arab with the cricket bat), Devlin pulls out his two guns, which stops them in their tracks. "Remember that scene in 'Indiana Jones'," he asks. Then he grabs the pistols by their barrels. "Too easy." Dev uses the guns' handles to parry swords, stakes and axes, spinning round to confront each foe in rapid succession, kicking and clubbing when he gets the chance. Soon all five are down. He puts one gun away and leaps at the attacker with the ax, grabbing its handle with his right hand and driving the pistol's handle through his skull with the left. Dev quickly gets up and knocks one attacker down with a right roundhouse kick and another with a left hook after breaking his pike in two, clobbering the unfortunate warrior in the jaw with his pistol, breaking the bone. Meanwhile, the man with the modified cricket bat uses it to stake the French woman. "Dammit," Dev yells as he leaps away from two more attackers and towards the slayer. He tries again to deal a mortal blow with the back end of his pistol, but the smart warrior rolls to the left and gets out of the way, tenderizing Devlin's right shoulder in the process with a metal tooth from his weapon.

Elektra eludes two attacks by the uninjured skinheads, then snaps the neck of the fellow she hit in the eye with the star and slits the throat of the man she carved a bloody cross on. Since he's wearing a white t-shirt, his chest resembles the cross of Saint Andrew, though she doesn't realize this, nor would she care, unlike her brother. The remaining duo retreats towards the Arabs, looking to these strange bedfellows for protection against the fiercest vampire they've ever faced. She sets herself upon a quartet of Algerians before they can stake Devlin - who's busy battling their leader and avoiding the meanest cricket bat he's ever seen.

"And I thought it was a gentleman's game," Dev jokes. His sister knocks one attacker down with a forward flip kick, avoids a second with a cartwheel kick that knocks the third down, then goes to knock out the fourth with finger blow to the windpipe. He sees this coming and, rather than attack and try to beat her speed, wisely takes two steps back. His three buddies soon join him in a retreat toward the pair of skinheads. All six give each other funny looks and each realize they actually now depend on their hated enemies for their individual survival. Quickly sensing a double-team, the Algerian leader makes good his escape from Devlin before Elektra can spring the trap. The seven humans now face off against the two vampires, who are illuminated by the fire behind them. The Algerian with the cricket bat says a few words. His four followers readily agree. The two skinheads reluctantly acquiesce to this new boss. The seven of them surround the sibling duo, who now stand back-to-back. Everyone is tired. Dev's right shoulder is badly mauled. One of the Arabs has an extremely painful shattered jaw, causing him to stare with his mouth agape at Elektra, who assumes he merely finds her sexy, which, for the record, he doesn't. The leader attacks Devlin from the right, wisely exploiting his injury. Dev takes three metal teeth in his right ribs, further weakening him. The other four Algerians descend on Elektra. She kicks two the ground but is clubbed and punched down to her knees by the other two. While Devlin is preoccupied with his main attacker, the two skinheads nail him in the knees. Dev rolls on the ground, avoiding the souped-up bat and pulling down the skinheads. But the Arab kicks him in the injured right side of the ribs. Devlin groans and looks upward to see the v-shaped bat raised and its point about to be plunged into his heart. If he grabs it, his hands will be shredded by the teeth along the side.

But just at this moment of truth, the Arab feels someone tugging at his neck. Another vampire? But there is no one behind him. His feet leave the ground, and his head arches back as he struggles for breath. He reaches up, trying to remove the invisible hands from his neck. The skinheads witness this otherworldly sight as they stand up, and are understandably taken aback, assuming Devlin is responsible. But Devlin just looks up, equally stunned. The brave warrior's eyes roll back, and he falls lifeless to the sand, felled by a seemingly invisible enemy. Standing fifty feet behind him is a woman in black.


	8. When Devlin Met Dawny

Devlin lures Faith into a trap and eludes Buffy for a second time and tries to get to Xander before she can. Jeta improves Dev's spirits and fires up Elektra who proposes they kill Spike and Angel. Meanwhile, a flashback shows Dawn's first encounter with Devlin.

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Jeta's arrival and supernatural dispatch of the lead Arab changes everything. The four remaining Algerians and two remaining skinheads flee away from the powerful, mysterious new woman while Devlin and Elektra are still on their knees. Dev slowly gets up as Jeta quickly approaches him. It must be a mirage. Maybe he had already been staked and this was a pre-disintegration hallucination. He holds his arms out, but Jeta runs by him and hugs Elektra. Clearly, this wasn't a fantasy.

"What took you so long, bitch," Leks jokes. "We were fighting for our fucking lives."

"I vanted to see if you were vorth my trouble," Jeta jokes back in her thick German accent.

"Worth your trouble," Devlin interjects, not getting the joke. "How many Slayers have you killed?" He instantly realizes it was a mistake to insult the woman that for many years was his dream girl. He also remembers the fleeing humans, who are now more than one hundred yards distant. Dev takes aim and shoots them in the head two at a time. He's trained himself to aim and fire at two targets simultaneously, something humans cannot do, but Jeta's not impressed by such frivolous gunplay. "I'm sorry. You probably haven't had the chance." He immediately realizes this attempt to smooth things over might have sounded patronizing.

"I have fought many Slayers."

"By yourself," Elektra adds. "Like me. I couldn't kill 'em 'till I got with Devlin. And even then we can't kill the Big Kahunas. But with you we can do it! We'll be unstoppable."

"Where have you fought Slayers," Devlin asks, wanting to further pinpoint their location.

"Everywhere, it seems. They follow me. But I found one who wasn't in Gibraltar. She was older. Experienced. In every sense."

"You mean the other one," Leks infers. "She's with Buffy now, trying to find us." Elektra is having visions of taking down Buffy and Faith, which would both destroy the enemy and make them instant legends.

"Faith," Devlin interjects. "You fought her. Me too!"

"Yet few have faith in her," Jeta offers.

"Yeah, isn't it ironic, don't ya think," Elektra adds, not interested in such personal, internal matters.

"Tell me about the fight," Devlin requests.

"Later. First we dance." She takes Elektra's hand and the two of them prance around the fire as Jeta hums an eastern tune. Devlin jumps over it in another vain attempt to impress the Gypsy.

"You call that a jump," Elektra taunts. She backs up and jumps over the fire from a standstill from twenty feet away while doing a flip. Jeta closes her eyes and keeps dancing. Devlin stares at her and smiles.

"Looks like I found you a woman," Elektra whispers to him.

"You knew all along. But you didn't tell."

"And ruin the surprise? We've been chatting online for a while now."

"Yetta's online? Has she seen my videos?"

"You mean OUR video?"

"Does she say anything about me?"

"She thinks you're a good leader."

"Really. Wow. So she accepts I'm in command?"

"I don't think anyone's in command of her. Ever. She does what she likes. Now she likes us. And maybe she'll do you."

"What about you," Dev asks with a smirk. "You know where her heart lies."

"Jealous?"

"Only when she touches you." Jeta runs over and takes Elektra's hand.

"We eat now," she orders the siblings. "I know a great place."

"There's so much I have to tell you," Elektra begins. "We were in London. And we - " Jeta holds Elektra's right hand up and bites into her wrist. "Ow!" She slowly drinks, then licks the wound while looking at Devlin.

"Nice story. So he killed another Watcher. That will bring vengeance."

"Like everything we've already done hasn't," Elektra counters with good reason.

"He was special." She then speaks German.

"You're right," Devlin responds. "The Watcher in the Council's old capital had to be prestigious." He already knew of Robson's close connection to Giles and was only pretending to be surprised to flatter Jeta. Not surprisingly, she could tell.

"You don't need to make me happy." She takes his left hand. "Just lead."

"Where are we going," he asks, unfamiliar with the city.

"I'll lead," Jeta responds, skipping forward with Elektra through the sand as Devlin trots along, perhaps an indication of things to come."

"You want to know my past," Devlin asks, hoping she'll bite him.

"I've read your blog." Dev's disappointed, but likes that she's kept tabs on him. It's also funny to hear a woman he regards as the epitome of the Old World use the word blog.

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Paris did not have surveillance cameras in profusion like London, so Buffy was stymied in her search for where Dev and Leks went when they detrained. She's sure they went to the coast, and correctly guesses Marseille when she sees it on a map. Giles believes Devlin is following his old strategy of luring the enemy after him then attacking its base, which would place him on the way to Buffyless Rome. Marseilles just happened to be on the way to Rome. Faith, the only one who really could get inside the mind of a fugitive, believed they stayed in Paris to hide out until the two senior Slayers moved on. Then they'd kill the novice Parisian Slayer duo and rub it in Buffy's face. Giles had to confess to Buffy that this also sounded very credible. So they stayed put and made contact with Sophie and Marguerite, who lived Watcherless in the City of Lights. The two young, fancy-free Slayers, who reminded Faith of her and B when they were that age, proudly explained how they had exterminated or terrified all the vampires in the city center, and that vampires now only lurked in the outer suburbs, especially the banlieus where Algerians lived. Unable to blend with the locals, they sired neighborhood gang members, who were able to negotiate a modus vivendi with their former comrades. In exchange for not killing locals, they attacked people in other suburbs, but didn't go after tourists in the heart of town out of fear of the Slayers. Marguerite was clearly the more bookish one, and Sophie sometimes looked bored as her partner explained the strategic situation, which even bored Buffy, who mostly just cared about catching Devlin. Giles later explained how this information might prove handy. While showing off the previous year, Devlin had flaunted his Arabic fluency to Dawn by conversing in front of her with a Kuwaiti tourist. It would be natural for him to use this skill to forge alliances with these banlieu vampires and increase his numbers to attack all four Slayers.

Shortly after dark, they hit several of these neighborhoods. Buffy's aggressiveness brought in much more kills than the girls were used to getting, but alienated the locals with her attitude, thus hurting future prospects for cooperation, as Marguerite explained. Buffy said if they didn't kill Devlin, Sophie and Marguerite might not have a future to worry about. She explained repeatedly how these new vampires didn't play by the rules. Buffy also worked the Slayers longer than they were used to, keeping them up nearly to dawn and only allowing them to hit clubs for business, not pleasure. Faith seemed to grow especially close to Sophie, even though the girl spoke little English. Shortly after getting to sleep, Buffy was awoken by Giles.

"Do you have any idea what time it is," she asks as she rubs her eyes.

"You'll have time to sleep on the train to Marseille."

"I was right!"

"Sadly. I found out this morning of twenty two deaths there, including fourteen presumed demon fighters."

"Demon fighters? No Slayers, I hope."

"All male. There were bullet wounds. Chinese throwing stars."

"Their calling cards."

"But there's something new. In the killings that followed, they were reported to be accompanied by another vampire. Eyewitness descriptions match those of the elusive Yetta."

"Yeti? I thought those didn't exist."

"The Gypsy." Buffy had forgotten about her with everything else going on.

"Oh. Right. The lesbian bird lady."

"Such a combination would prove very deleterious our cause."

"Why? We can kill them all together. It makes things easier, the way I see it."

"The two of you shouldn't take all three on at once."

"We won't. I promise."

"Sophie and Marguerite? Are they experienced enough?"

"They seem to have it going on. Marguerite's a bit of a talker, but - "

"If you trust the two of them, go ahead. But don't forget - "

"They killed Rona and Vi. I can't."

"Neither can I."

"That's why they gotta die. That and they're, you know, vampires."

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While Elektra slept soundly on a full stomach, Devlin updated his blog with their latest adventures and Jeta asked for information about the witch who worked with Buffy. Dev assured Jeta Willow was far away, which oddly seemed to disappoint the vampire. Jeta seemed very businesslike and down-to-earth. Devlin wasn't used to her that way, and it bruised his idealized illusions of her as some spacey free-spirit. Jeta went to bed next, putting her arms around Elektra. Devlin, who went to bed last by several hours, put his arms around Jeta for the first time.

The high-speed train got the four Slayers to Marseilles before noon. The police had already checked most of the hotels for three teenage guests, starting with the fanciest places. Buffy didn't trust them, so she hit the fancy places again herself. The problem was that Devlin, anticipating a relentless pursuit, checked out a room in Toulon thirty miles to the east, which they traveled to in the skinhead's car. Buffy was therefore wasting precious time. By supper, frustrated with her lack of success, Buffy decided to stake out the airport with Marguerite, while Faith and Sophie took the central train station. She discarded Giles's admonitions to respect the strength of the newly-formed trio in the interests of not letting them get away a second time.

But Buffy was never to arrive at the airport. Nor Faith the train station. As they left the restaurant, four officers approach them. Buffy assumes they are there to help. Sophie and Marguerite quickly realize they are not. They plead with the officers, flabbergasted by what they hear come out of the gendarmes' mouths. When one of the men takes Faith by the arm, Sophie punches him. Marguerite kicks the one near her. Faith immediately realizes what's happening and kicks a gun out of one gendarme's hand, hits another with a right roundhouse kick to the face, then punches the previous one out with a right hook. The three of them run, with Buffy quickly behind. When they get a few blocks away, Buffy stops them. "What the hell was that? A return to bad form?"

"They were trying to arrest her," Marguerite explains.

"What? Faith? Why? Oh. Wait. What about the vampires who are killing everyone in town?"

"I'm guessing they tipped the cops off about my history," Faith infers. "G-man said he'd do something like this."

"I don't believe this," Buffy declares. We're trying to find three killers, who are probably killing right now, and we're the bad guys? Fucking French. No offense, girls." The sounds of approaching sirens can be heard.

"They should go," Faith says.

"Non," Sophie replies, sensing what Faith was proposing.

"We're staying," Marguerite declares. "To protect Faith." Buffy's glad they're loyal, though it would be nice if they were loyal to her.

"Then I'll go," Faith replies. "I can take care of myself. And you can kill 'em without me. It's been real, B." She runs north. Buffy runs south. Sophie and Marguerite, after a few seconds of hesitation, follow Buffy.

"Okay girls," she says as they run down the back streets. "Here's the plan. We go to the train station, try to keep from getting arrested. The airport's too far away. Fucking cops." Just then, a police cruiser blocks their path. The three of them leap over the obstacle. When they land, they realize they are surrounded by six armed cops. Buffy halts and puts her hands up rather than risk getting the girls shot. An investigator steps forward.

"Where is the American fugitive," he asks Buffy in English.

"You'll never catch her," Sophie yells out in French.

"It's not like she's a tree," Buffy replies. "She can move."

"Where did you last see her?"

"You know, with all this chasing going on, I can't remember."

"She's on our side," Marguerite says in French.

"You don't cooperate, we'll revoke your passport," he threatens.

"Ooh. I'm shaking."

"The Americans, however, can do a lot more. 'Harboring a Fugitive, I believe, is what they told me."

"This is insane. There are three killers on the loose."

"We are searching for them as well. Do not think we cannot handle two crimes at once. We are a big force," he says patronizingly. "You two can go," he says in French.

"Non," Marguerite replies, heartening Buffy.

"Oui," Buffy insists. "Be careful," she says to Marguerite. The investigator knows they are dangerous, and therefore would rather only have to restrain one. Buffy realizes she can no longer work in this town. The vampires, for now, have won.

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The police fanned out throughout the airport and left pictures of two out of the three killers at security checkpoints. They also had officers at the train and bus stations. Of course, the wanted man and women could just drive away, and there's no way they could stop that, although there was a bulletin out for the car stolen from the dead skinheads. Simply put, aside from getting in Buffy's way, the police did everything they could to help. Devlin had already driven out of town the night before. But now he drove back to the airport, in another car of course, this one stolen from some unfortunate young male driver Elektra stepped in front of and flashed. When he stopped, pulled down the window and asked her kindly if she needed a ride, or, if not, if she could get out of the way, Devlin ripped him out of his seat and Jeta bit him. Elektra walked over and joined in. Devlin sat down in the driver's seat and calmly told them to please finish before someone drove by and saw them engaging in such suspicious oddness. After all, they had a plane to catch.

The plane was a private charter. They were able to drive to the hangar and avoid airport security by bypassing the terminals. Jeta was nervous, since she had never flown on a plane. She had, of course, flown on her own as a raven, making her fear of flying all the more odd. "There's really nothing to it. A little ear pain, sure, but it's a small price to pay for unlimited mobility," Dev says to her with his right arm around her shoulders. Also, there are things you can do to make a flight more enjoyable." She pushes him away. "Not that. Drinking. Watching movies. It's basically like a slumber party. Wait, you don't know what those are."

"Just a buncha girls in their underwear talking about boys," Elektra explains. Jeta puts her right arm around her shoulders.

"Tell me more." Elektra pushes her away.

"Not like that. Least not at any I went to."

"Maybe at some of Kennedy's," Devlin interjects. "You can ask her about them. When we get there. And to get there, we need to fly."

"Kennedy was a man," Jeta replies.

"Not this Kennedy."

"Yeah, she's like head of the Sunnydale 12," Elektra adds, underestimating their numbers. "And she's a major lesbo. But not in the butch, hairy armpit, spiky hair way."

"Willow doesn't go for that," Devlin says. "Though I'm guessing this one's a bit of a tomboy. Would you like to have your way with a tomboy Slayer?"

"I have already found my Slayer. She's Spanish. Vell, she's Greek, but she doesn't know it yet." Dev and Leks are confused by that last part, but soon figure out the first part."

"Oh no," Leks yells. "Not you too!"

"For every great vampire, there is a Slayer," Dev says with a smile.

"I don't fucking believe this. Slayers are not hot. Vampires are hot. Slayers are just souped-up mortals who wanna be vampires. Why not go for the real thing?"

"I did. Once," Jeta replies.

"You start wanting Slayers, soon you can't kill them," Elektra warns. "Look what happened to dad."

"How is Spike,"Jeta asks.

"Working for Angel," Dev reports. "It's pathetic."

"Spike and Engel," Jeta says.

"Sort of like Marx and Engels," Dev jokes.

"Who are they," Elektra asks.

"Nobody you'd care about. But Karl Marx did write a lot about vampires."

"He had a thing for vampire women," Leks asks.

"Not that I know of. He just thought they were a lot like capitalists."

"Bor-ing."

"Lucky for you I'm enough of a capitalist to afford this jet. Dev walks up the stairs. Leks leaps over the stairs. Jeta, outdoing Leks, turns into a raven and flies into the plane.

"Show-off," Elektra jokes. Devlin closes the door and the three of them settle in.

"They need each other," Jeta says, seemingly out of nowhere. "Spike and Engel. Like we need each other." Devlin smiles.

"Spike doesn't need Angel," Elektra objects. "He's just afraid. Souls do that to vampires."

"Spike's a leader," Dev adds.

"WAS a leader."

"The way I see it, Angel was a complete loser for about a century. Spike's hit the ground running. He'll surpass Angel in time."

"Unless we kill him first," Elektra says. Dev gasps. "He's not the same Spike. The vampire we loved and obeyed is dead."

"There are ways of taking away a vampire's soul."

"Brother, you don't get it. Our father didn't die when he got a soul. He died when he fell for that cunt Buffy. Take away the soul, he still loves her. And he'll still protect her. Which is why we gotta kill him before they get back together."

"What about Angel," Devlin asks. "Isn't he even more dangerous? He's got powerful followers."

"We kill Angel too. One after the other. Then Buffy's alone. She won't have any vampires to not fuck. That's gonna be hard on a cunt like hers." Devlin nervously looks outside as the plane taxis on the runway to make sure the authorities aren't on his tail. He took care of Buffy and Faith with a phone call to Interpol. But the police can still ground him. At least for the next ten minutes.

"I did not join you to kill vampires," Jeta explains.

"You wouldn't do it? They'd kill you in a second if they got the chance."

"Their souls need to suffer."

"Jeta's right," Devlin says.

"Like how you're making your ex-sister suffer rather than killing her?"

"Not about that. About the other thing. We're together to kill Slayers."

"For now."

"We'll burn that bridge when we get to it."

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After being let go by the police, Buffy caught the first plane she could get from Marseille to Rome. "They left. About an hour before you got there," Gretchen reports.

"Figures. Where are they going?"

"The plane's flight plan says Lagos."

"Where Xander is?" Buffy's instantly concerned.

"I think they think Xander's a Watcher," Dawn explains. "And I think they're trying to kill as many Watchers as they can. Devlin's been writing online about how much rarer they are than Slayers, and harder to train," she says with pride. But Buffy is skeptical.

"Why would he tell us what he's going to do before he does it? Why wouldn't he say one thing, to throw us off track, then do something else?" Dawn doesn't appreciate the vote of no confidence.

"Because he's already killed two while leaving the Slayers alone," Giles answers.

"Whatever. He's in - where is he?"

"Lagos," Gretchen replies.

"I go there, kill him, save Xander. Who wants to give me a ride to the airport?"

"I'll drive," Giles says. "Gretchen's also leaving. For Cleveland."

"But my flight's not until tomorrow."

"You can get an earlier flight." Gretchen wonders why Rupert wants her gone.

"So that leaves me," Dawn points out.

"Watch Andrew," Giles orders. "Make sure he doesn't get into any trouble." Dawn mopes away. Babysitting Andrew was no job for a Watcher-in-Training. Maybe they were punishing her for her friendship with Devlin. Or they were just ignoring her as usual.

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Dev, Leks and Jeta landed in Nigeria two hours before sunrise. They immediately walked to a car on the runway. A group of six security officials approach them. Evidently they've been tipped off by the French. "Please come with us," one of them says to Devlin. He reaches into the bag he's carrying over his right shoulder. Guns are pointed at him.

"Relax." He slowly unzips the bag. "You see, I just got here. So I haven't had a chance to pay my disembarkation tax. I should have been prepared for that. I apologize. He pulls out one thousand U.S. dollars in his right hand.

"Please come with us, sir," the guard orders, seizing his left arm. Dev pulls out another thousand. The guard lets go of his left arm.

"Thank you sir. That will be all." The six of them walk away. Devlin laughs.

"I love the Third World." They continue on to the waiting SUV.

"How much cash are you carrying," Elektra wonders.

"You don't wanna know."

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Rome. September 2003. Dawn sits alone at a cappuccino bar after school, sipping an espresso. At the other end of the bar, twenty feet to Dawn's left, sits Devlin. He looks over his shoulder, making sure it is still cloudy outside. The server brings his cup. Dev takes out his lighter and ignites the coffee, which is mixed with a hefty shot of grappa liquor. There are a few gasps. Dawn hears them, and the sound of fire. She sees a teenage boy in expensive black slacks, Gucci shoes and a shiny blue button-down shirt with a cup of flaming something in his left hand. He leans his head back, downs the concoction and slowly exhales smoke, first out of his mouth, then out of his nose. A few people clap. Dev smiles and bows. His hair is parted in the center, with his bangs hanging over his forehead, making him look younger than his nineteen years. Dev catches sight of Dawn and pretends it's the first time he's seen her. She walks over and speaks halting Italian. Devlin lets fly a fusillade of soft-spoken rapid-fire Italian, adding "Okay," at the end. "Relax. I'm American too."

"What makes you so sure I'm American? Besides, like, hearing me talk right now."

"We have a certain look. I've been on all six continents. You can always spot the Americans right away."

"Only six," she jokes. "What are you, scared of Antarctica?"

"I'd like to go there when it's always dark. I was in Tierra del Fuego in June. Four hours of sunlight a day."

"You like the darkness," she asks.

"Yeah. I'm a real vampire." He chuckles. She doesn't at first, then realizes he's joking and probably doesn't even know they really exist. "No. Seriously. I like extremes. Light. Dark. Cold. Hot."

"Ergo the flaming coffee." They both laugh.

"Someone's taking Latin. So what college do you go to back in the states?"

"College? You think I'm in college?" Dawn's flattered he overestimated her age. People are always treating her like a little girl.

"You go to a high school with a study abroad program? That's unusual."

"No. I just study abroad. Here. I live here."

"With your family?"

"Yeah."

"Lucky you." He lights up a cigarette. "Ya mind?"

"Oh. No." It occurs to her this is the first man who's smoked in front of her since Spike, though he couldn't be more different.

"Want one?"

"Oh. No! I don't smoke." She was a little shocked by the offer. Once again, it serves to make her feel grown up in Devlin's eyes.

"I know I should quit. These things take years of your life. Now that that sorta thing mattered in ancient Rome, where life expectancy was thirty years and you could die any day from disease or war. "

"You study ancient Rome?"

"That's why I'm here. What better place to be for that?"

"So you can read Latin?" She has some homework she'd like to use this guy to do.

"And ancient Greek. German. Italian. Spanish. I also speak Arabic, though I can't read it."

"Wow. How'd you find the time?"

"My family traveled a lot when I was a kid. You pick up stuff here and there. Except for Latin and Greek, of course. Those I took in high school. Six high schools. Traveled even more than my namesake."

"Who? I mean, what's your name?"

"Jason. Except, unlike him, I have no plans to marry a Russian witch and then abandon her. I mean, if she's a witch, why take the risk?" Dawn laughs at the clueless yet erudite and strangely interesting young man who, like most people, must have no idea of the supernatural netherworld that lurks around every corner.

"I'm Dawn." She holds out her right hand.

"Hey." He just waves his, which has a cigarette in it. No point risking her feeling his cold hands. "So do you come here often?"

"Whenever I need a caffeine boost after school. Which turns out to be most days."

"I'm guessing they won't want me back after my little pyrotechnic display. I'm always getting kicked out of places."

"A nice guy like you? I don't buy it." She thinks he's clearly trying to impress her by sounding like a bad boy, which he obviously is not.

"Nice? Me?" He turns his head and watches a young man in tight jeans walk out. "Now that's nice. Me, I'm just, serviceable. Or so I'm told." Dawn realizes he's gay, which comes as a slight shock. She was sure he was hitting on her. This is great! He doesn't want to be her boyfriend. He just wants to be her "girlfriend." Finally, she has someone outside of school and away from home to talk to. Plus he can help her with her homework and her Italian.

"I know what you mean. It's hard getting boys to notice me, too."

"Nice try sister. I'm not buying it."

"You've probably had more boyfriends than me."

"That things are going to have to change." Dev hears the rain outside and smiles on the inside. He rushes out. She follows him. He takes out his umbrella (the one he will use in the future to kill Robson) and holds it over her head. "Too old, too short, too fat, perfect." Dawn grabs his arm.

"What are you doing?"

"Playing matchmaker. If he's straight, he'll go for you. If he's not, all the better." Dawn yanks his arm.

"No."

"I'm just kidding, honey. I hate getting set up, too. My mom was always playing matchmaker. Until she found out." Dev imagines how Dru and Spike would take it if he really was gay, and almost bursts out laughing.

"Was that tough? I'm sorry. Too personal."

"No, no. I brought it up. Christmas Break, last year. I was finally in college, so I figured it was time."

"I have a gay friend. Listen to me. Next thing I know I'll be saying 'some of my best friends are gay.' Which is true. Or, was."

Dev puts his left hand over his heart and gasps. "You mean I'm not your first? There've been other queens before me?"

"No. Just, lesbians." Dev starts walking. Dawn follows along.

"Them I don't get. Who hates the penis?" She giggles.

"You're funny."

"We're supposed to be. Don't you watch tv?"

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A very different Devlin approaches the abandoned oil storage building in Lagos where the vampires have set up temporary headquarters. Still, he has some of "Jason's" flair and flamboyance. "We're not just walking in there," he tells Elektra.

"I can jump through a window. Yetta could fly. You, you can't do much."

"Oh yeah?" He scales the wall.

"Any vampire can do that."

"Doesn't make it less effective." Elektra follows. Jeta turns into a bird and flies up to the roof. Dev finds an opening and swoops in from thirty feet up, his coat billowing as he falls to the floor. Elektra is next. The vampires, suspecting a sneak attack, charge. Yeta flies in and lands on Dev's right shoulder. Then she morphs back into a vampire, materializing in front of Dev and Leks and shocking the nine attackers in their tracks. "You need to work on security," Devlin brags. "I could have been a Slayer."

"Then we would have killed you."

"What if I were four Slayers? See, that's the problem."

"And you are the savior?" The black vampires all laugh.

"I come not to kill, but to feed." He opens his bag and pours out gobs of cash. "One hundred thousand American. That should take care of your other appetites." The vampires rush over and take the money in hand to make sure it's real. Elektra's shocked her brother is such a baller. "I also have a humble suggestion. Forget about the Slayers. Kill the Watcher. Then you can see how they fare without a leader."

"The one-eyed white man is charmed," another vampire explains. "He is protected by forces unseen."

"No one here has magic," Jeta declares, indirectly insulting the vampires for being ordinary. "I would sense him if he were."

"Plutarch wrote that the best generals were one-eyed," Devlin bloviates. "Philip of Macedonia. Sertorius. Hannibal." Xander would love the comparison, and the fact that someone finally is putting good spin on his loss of an eye.

"How charmed can he be if someone took his eye out," Elektra asks.

"Have you tried to kill him," Devlin queries.

"No. It would be a waste."

"So you don't attack him because he's charmed, which is proven by the fact he isn't attacked. Nice circular reasoning."

"Forget the Slayers and you get a stake in the back," a third vampire points out.

"You have the numbers to hold off the Slayers and attack the Watcher. Though I wouldn't do it until Said comes down from Abuja."

"Said is an infidel Muslim," a fourth vampire, this one female, yells out. Devlin's at the end of his tether.

"When are we going to learn that it doesn't matter which God you choose to curse and defy? It's all the same force."

"I don't see Slayers wearing crescents around their necks," she points out.

"I also don't see vampires getting vaporized from touching pages of the Gospels. Pages of Koranic verses, yes. Christians don't have a monopoly on talismans. And, at the very least, you'll need him for fodder Monday night. Better he get killed than one of you." Devlin sees that Elektra's seducing an especially attractive vampire. "Leks! Sister. We don't have time."

"Can I take him with me," she pouts.

"He's needed here." Leks lets go of him, but he grabs her and pulls her close.

"Five minutes. I'll rock your world." She throws him over her shoulder to the ground.

"Five minutes? That's not even worth the grinding." She walks back to Dev and Jeta, outraged.

"It's okay," Dev tells his sister. "He just hasn't had any Slayer blood. That shit'll make you go for hours. Trust me." They laugh at the short white man flaunting his supposed sexual prowess. Even Jeta smirks. "My point is, the sooner you kill the Watcher, the sooner you'll kill the Slayers. Without him to lead them, they'll fall one-by-one. Maybe not in one night, but soon. You are part of a vanguard of a new age, a new era for vampires that you yourselves will help create through your heroic actions. The Slayers think they can kill anything. They have NOT killed you. Your very presence is testimony to their weakness. They cannot conquer you. They will NEVER conquer you! You shall overcome them!" The vampires are too busy counting the money to listen to his stirring speech. But at least he has their loyalty one way or another. "Goodbye and good luck. I know you won't need it. He turns and walks to the door. Jeta and Elektra follow, knowing they have to hurry to make it to their plane before sunrise. "Kill! Maim! Destroy," he yells with raised right fist.

"Yeah," one vampire shouts back, move by the sentiment. They start chanting menacingly in Yoruban to build up their courage and invoke protective spirits before bedtime, the most dangerous time of the day.

"I think my work here is done," Dev says proudly. Elektra rolls her eyes. She knows he'd be nowhere without his small mountain of cash. It's the only thing that gives him a leg up over other ambitious Slayer killers eager to lead the world's vampires. "On to Rio," he says after slipping the driver a hundred bucks.

"On to Rio," Elektra repeats.

"Onto Willow," Jeta says with a smile.


End file.
